Cities With Job Growth Favor Public Sector Hiring

Annual Forbes.com ranking shows ‘awful year’ for employment in U.S.

This year's "best places for jobs" list is easily the most depressing since we began compiling our annual rankings almost a decade ago. In the past — even in bad years — there were always stalwart areas creating lots of new jobs. In 2007's survey 283 out of 393 metros areas showed job growth, and those at the top were often growing employment by at least 5 percent to 6 percent. Last year the number dropped to 63. This year's survey, measuring growth from January 2009 to January 2010, found only 13 metros with any growth.

Mike Shires at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy, who develops the survey, calls it "an awful year." Making it even worse, the source of new jobs in almost all areas were either government employment or highly taxpayer-funded sectors like education and health. This year's best-performing regions were those that suffered the smallest losses in the private economy while bulking up on government steroids.

So far the recovery has favored the government-dominated apparat and those places where public workers congregate. After all, besides Wall Street, public-financed workers have been the big beneficiaries of the stimulus, with state and local governments receiving more than one-third of all funds. Public employment grew by nearly 2 percent over the past three years, while private employment has dropped by 7 percent.

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