DC Tops List For Projected Job Growth

• February 7, 2012

by Shilpi Paul

According to recently-released data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and analyzed by Trulia’s Chief Economist Jed Kolko for a piece in Atlantic Cities, DC’s job market will grow at the fastest rate of any metro area in the country over the next ten years.

Project Job Growth. Courtesy of Atlantic Cities.

Kolko took the BLS numbers, which projected the industries that should grow the fastest, and layered those statistics over where the industries are located. “The metro areas that should grow fastest will then be those where fast-growing industries are concentrated,” determined Kolko.

UrbanTurf spoke with Kolko to get a better sense of why DC came out on top, particularly since the job growth measured private sector jobs. He explained that some of the fastest growing industries over the next ten years will be management, scientific and technological consultancy, NGO’s and social advocacy, and computer systems and facility support — industries that DC is full of. He told us that the plethora of consultants and NGO workers in the DC area will breed even more consultants and NGO workers.

Kolko did warn that industry growth projections should not be taken as clairvoyant predictions; cities are often held back by factors like weather or boosted by a particularly educated work force. In DC’s case, said Kolko, the region may be held back by how expensive it is or the contraction of the federal government.

Still, Kolko is not the only one who is projecting some big job growth in the area; in October, we reported on a study out of George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis, which predicted one million new jobs coming to DC in the next 20 years.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dc_tops_list_for_projected_job_growth/5083