Pic-of-the-Week: Oklahoma Metro Job Growth (4/7/2014)

The Oklahoma City and Tulsa Metro Areas Continue to Rank High in Job Growth

Both the Tulsa and Oklahoma City metro areas rank among the top half of all metros in job growth the past twelve months. The two charts provide a distribution for all 372 of the nation’s metropolitan areas by their job growth rate and by number of jobs created in the period. Oklahoma City ranks 57^th out of 372 metro areas with a 3.1% gain (18,100 jobs) while Tulsa ranks 134^th with a 2.1% gain (8,800 jobs). Job growth in both metro areas is well above the national gain of 1.7% in the period. Energy-producing areas and the high-growth, high-amenity regions are clustered near the top.

The scale of job creation in Oklahoma City and Tulsa takes on a different perspective when viewed by number of jobs created.

Oklahoma City is ranked 27^th in number of jobs created, with Tulsa 50^th. These gains are more reflective of their relative population size.

If you aren’t quite sure how concentrated job growth is in the nation’s large metro areas, consider this: 1) only the twenty-six metro areas ranked ahead of Oklahoma City managed to create more than 20,000 jobs the past twelve months, while 80% of the nation’s metro areas created less than 5,000 jobs the past twelve months.

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