Given the current discussions of job growth rankings, I thought I would update our previous work on employment growth by city size. The following graphs illustrate job losses by all U.S. metropolitan areas during the recession and then each MSA’s employment gains so far in recovery. The dates used for these calculations are city specific, depending upon when each city began losing jobs and when each city began gaining jobs.
Just a reminder that in terms of using percentiles for ranking purposes, 100 is best while the 1st percentile is the lowest 1 percent. So Bend’s job losses ranking in the 2nd percentile means only 9 MSAs experienced larger job losses. Portland lost about as many jobs as the median city, while Corvallis saw job losses less than two-thirds of all cities.
In recovery, while Bend and Eugene trail the pack, only Salem ranks in the bottom decile of U.S. cities. Portland – with it’s Top 10 growth in the past year – has experienced job gains overall this recovery period that are stronger than three-quarters of all U.S. cities.
Mark McMullen
Josh Lehner
Oregon Office of Economic Analysis 
Great post, i sure enjoy the blog, continue on it.
By: Jillian Hwang on September 10, 2012
at 3:00 AM
It is the second entry I read tonight. Thank you.
By: googlepo on September 10, 2012
at 4:35 PM
[…] terms of the economic fallout, only 1 percent of the nation’s metros overall saw larger employment declines than Bend experienced and only 7 percent saw worst declines […]
By: Graph of the Week: Housing Bust Metros Update | Oregon Office of Economic Analysis on September 9, 2016
at 10:33 AM