Total nonfarm employment for the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area stood at 2,211,000 in June 2012, an increase of 16,100, from one year ago, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The 0.7-percent rate of gain in the Miami metropolitan area lagged behind national job growth of 1.3 percent from June 2011 to June 2012. Regional Commissioner Janet S. Rankin noted that Miami has experienced over-the-year employment growth for nearly two years. (See chart 1 and table 1; All data in this release are not seasonally adjusted; accordingly, over-the-year analysis is used throughout.)

Metropolitan divisions

The Miami area is made up of three metropolitan divisions—separately identifiable employment centers within the larger metropolitan area. Two of the three divisions—Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, and West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach—added jobs from June a year ago. Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, the largest of the three divisions with 45 percent of the area's employment, added 10,800 jobs, accounting for about two-thirds of the area's job growth. The West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach division, with 23 percent of the employed, added 5,700 jobs, or around one-third of the area's growth. Employment in Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach was little changed over the year .

Industry employment

In the Miami metropolitan area, the education and health services supersector experienced the largest employment increase, up 12,600 or 3.7 percent from June a year ago. This supersector has experienced over-the-year employment gains every month since April 1999. Nationwide, employment in this industry grew 2.2 percent over the 12-month period. (See chart 2 and table 1.)

Trade, transportation, and utilities had the second largest over-the-year increase in jobs locally in June 2012, growing by 9,200. Other than education and health services, this was the only other supersector in the Miami area to have a faster rate of gain than the industry did nationwide, 1.8 versus 1.1 percent. The area's job growth in trade, transportation, and utilities was concentrated in the Miami division.

Professional and business services (8,400) added the third most jobs in the Miami area from June 2011, growing at a 2.5-percent pace. In particular, the West Palm Beach division accounted for most of the growth adding 5,600 jobs.

Three industry supersectors in the Miami area had employment declines of at least 3,000 from June 2011 to June 2012. Construction suffered the largest loss of jobs, down 7,200 or 8.6 percent, marking six years of consecutive over-the-year employment declines. Nationally, this industry added jobs over the 12-month period, increasing 0.2 percent. Leisure and hopitality posted the second largest loss of jobs in the Miami area, down 3,600 or 1.4 percent; nationally, this supersector added jobs, increasing 2.0 percent. The public sector posted the third largest loss, -3,300, a decline of 1.2 percent. Nationally, government lost jobs at a rate of 0.8 percent over the year. (See chart 2)

Employment in the 12 largest metropolitan areas

Miami was 1 of the nation's 12 largest metropolitan statistical areas in June 2012. All of these areas experienced over-the-year job gains from June 2011, with eight areas—Houston, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and New York—registering rates of growth above the 1.3-percent national average. Among the 12 areas, Houston experienced the fastest rate of expansion, up 3.3 percent, and Philadelphia, the slowest, at 0.5 percent. (See chart 3 and table 2.)

The New York area added the largest number of jobs, 116,000, from the previous June. Los Angeles and Houston followed with gains of 88,400 and 85,000, respectively. Two areas added fewer than 20,000 jobs over the 12-month period—Miami (16,100) and Philadelphia (13,700). (See chart 3 and table 2.)

Among the 12 metropolitan areas, professional and business services registered the largest employment gains from June a year ago in 7 areas—Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Education and health services led in 3 others—Houston, Miami, and Washington.

The public sector experienced the largest loss of jobs in seven areas—Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Francisco—from June 2011 to June 2012. Losses were highest in Los Angeles, down 11,300 over the year, followed by Houston and Philadelphia, down 10,600 and 9,900, respectively. Of the 12 areas, only Washington added more than 1,000 government jobs during this period.

Technical Note

This release presents nonfarm payroll employment estimates from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program. The CES survey is a Federal-State cooperative endeavor between State employment security agencies and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Definition. Employment data refer to persons on establishment payrolls who receive pay for any part of the pay period which includes the 12th of the month. Persons are counted at their place of work rather than at their places of residence; those appearing on more than one payroll are counted on each payroll. Industries are classified on the basis of their principal activity in accordance with the 2007 version of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).

Method of estimation. The employment data are estimated using a “link relative” technique in which a ratio (link relative) of current-month employment to that of the previous month is computed from a sample of establishments reporting for both months. The estimates of employment for the current month are obtained by multiplying the estimates for the previous month by these ratios. Small-domain models are used as the official estimators for approximately 39 percent of CES published series which have insufficient sample for direct sample-based estimates.

Annual revisions. Employment estimates are adjusted annually to a complete count of jobs, called benchmarks, derived principally from tax reports which are submitted by employers who are covered under state unemployment insurance (UI) laws. The benchmark information is used to adjust the monthly estimates between the new benchmark and the preceding one and also to establish the level of employment for the new benchmark month. Thus, the benchmarking process establishes the level of employment, and the sample is used to measure the month-to-month changes in the level for the subsequent months.

Reliability of the estimates. The estimates presented in this release are based on sample survey, administrative data, and modeling and, thus are subject to sampling and other types of errors. Sampling error is a measure of sampling variability—that is, variation that occurs by chance because a sample rather than the entire population is surveyed. Survey data are also subject to nonsampling errors, such as those which can be introduced into the data collection and processing operations. Estimates not directly derived from sample surveys are subject to additional errors resulting from the special estimation processes used. The sums of individual items November not always equal the totals shown in the same tables because of rounding.

Employment estimates. Measures of sampling error for state CES data at the supersector level are available online at www.bls.gov/sae/790stderr.htm. Information on recent benchmark revisions for states is available at www.bls.gov/sae/.

Area definitions. The substate area data published in this release reflect the standards and definitions established by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget on December 1, 2009. A detailed list of the geographic definitions is available at www.bls.gov/lau/lausmsa.htm.

The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, Fla., Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)
includes the counties of Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach in Florida.

The Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, Fla., Metropolitan Division (MD)
includes Broward County in Florida.

The Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla., Metropolitan Division (MD)
includes Miami-Dade County in Florida.

The West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach, Fla., Metropolitan Division (MD)
includes Palm Beach County in Florida.

Additional information

More complete information on the technical procedures used to develop these estimates and additional data appear in Employment and Earnings, which is available online at www.bls.gov/opub/ee/home.htm. Industry employment data for states and metropolitan areas from the Current Employment Statistics program are also available in the above mentioned news releases and from the Internet at www.bls.gov/sae/.

For personal assistance or further information on the Current Employment Statistics program, as well as other Bureau programs, contact the Southeast BLS information office at 404-893-4222 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET.

Current and historical information on the Current Employment Statistics program and other surveys are also available on our regional Web site at www.bls.gov/ro4/home.htm. Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: 202-691-5200; TDD message referral phone: 1-800-877-8339.

 

Last Modified Date: August 3, 2012