December 02, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Job flows in Rust Belt

Not surprisingly, metropolitan areas in the Rust Belt with the highest employment growth rates between 1992 and 2000 had higher rates of job creation than other metropolitan areas.

Rust Belt metropolitan areas quarterly means, grouped by employment growth, March 1992-March 2000
[Chart data—TXT]

However, what is surprising is that the areas with high employment growth also had high rates of job destruction. This suggests that high employment growth is not simply related to strong job creation or rapid job destruction. Instead, high employment growth occurs through more complicated labor dynamics involving high job turnover.

The BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages program produced the data shown in the chart. The study presented here looks at metropolitan areas in three Rust Belt States: Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Find more information in "Job flows and labor dynamics in the U.S. Rust Belt," by R. Jason Faberman, Monthly Labor Review, September 2002.