St. Louis Has a Jobs Problem
Date Posted: February 23, 2015
Posted In: Ideas,
From STL Today: St. Louis, like the rest of the United States, still bears scars from the Great Recession, which ended more than five years ago. Unlike much of the nation, healing here has been slow and uneven.
The evidence shows up in the region’s job statistics, among other places. Over the past year, the number of jobs increased by 2.3 percent across the nation. In the St. Louis area, the number of jobs increased by 1.3 percent.
Since 2009, the year the recession ended, the number of jobs in the nation has increased by 8 percent. In metro St. Louis, it is 3.6 percent.
By last May, the nation had caught up on all the jobs lost in the recession and added more. As of December, St. Louis was still 35,000 jobs short of its peak in early 2008.
In fact, St. Louis ranks 45th out of 50 large metro areas in job growth from 2010 to 2013, according to an analysis from the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, the region’s planning arm.
Economic production is growing more slowly here as well. The value of all things produced in St. Louis grew 10 percent from the recession’s depth in 2009 to 2013, the last estimate available from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Production in all metro areas in the U.S. grew 16 percent.
The region’s economy is seeing signs of recovery, but it trails the rest of America. People who study such things are uncertain why.