April 10, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

County employment: largest growth and decline, September 2006- 2007

In September, 2007, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, had the largest over-the-year percentage increase in employment among the largest counties in the U.S.

[Chart data—TXT]

Orleans Parish, which includes the city of New Orleans, experienced an over-the-year employment gain of 8.6 percent, compared with national job growth of 0.9 percent. The large employment gains in Orleans Parish reflected significant recovery from the substantial job losses that occurred in 2005 and 2006, which were related to Hurricane Katrina. Fort Bend, Texas (in the Houston metropolitan area), had the next largest increase, 7.1 percent, followed by the counties of Williamson, Tennessee (5.8 percent), which is near Nashville; Wake, North Carolina (5.2 percent), which includes Raleigh; and Utah, Utah (5.0 percent), which includes Provo.

The largest percentage decline in employment was in Trumbull County, Ohio (-5.7 percent), which is in the Youngstown area. Collier, Florida, which includes the city of Naples, had the next largest employment decline (-5.4 percent), followed by the counties of Sarasota, Florida (-4.3 percent) and Manatee, Florida (-4.2 percent), both just south of Tampa, and Atlantic, New Jersey (-3.8 percent), which includes Atlantic City.

The BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages program produced these data, which are preliminary and subject to revision. Data presented here are for all workers covered by State and Federal unemployment insurance programs. The largest counties are those with employment levels of 75,000 or more. Find out more in "County Employment and Wages: Third Quarter 2007", (PDF) (HTML) news release 08-0455.