According to a recent Labor Department report, the nation’s largest metropolitan areas have continued to steadily add jobs over the past year. Through June, nonfarm employment expanded in all fifty one of the U.S metropolitan areas with a twenty ten Census population of one million or more.
Among those fifty one communities, only eight experienced higher unemployment rate. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, this group includes Oklahoma City and Houston, two metropolitan areas with major energy sectors. Unemployment also rose in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Minneapolis, and Salt Lake City, but some of this was due to the fact that more people began looking for work.
Unemployed dipped significantly in the Baltimore region over the past year, falling from five point six percent in June of twenty fifteen to four point seven percent one year later, a decline of nearly one full percentage point.
Unemployment fell by eight tenths of one percent in the Washington metropolitan area, down to three point nine percent. While the Washington-Baltimore corridors is expected to continue to experience job growth over the near-term, unemployment could begin to rise as more people are drawn back into the workforce.
