County’s National Job-Growth Ranking Slips
Orange County might be one of the hottest job markets in the nation, but this year it slipped to 68th out of 291 metropolitan areas in job growth, according to Arizona State University’s Economic Outlook Center.
From April 1996 to April 1997, the number of jobs in the county grew by 32,600, or 2.77%, to 1.21 million, the study found.
A year earlier, the Arizona State survey ranked Orange County 58th nationally in job growth.
But when measured against the 40 largest metropolitan markets in the nation--where big percentage increases in work forces are harder to come by than in smaller areas--Orange County placed 12th. In 1996, the county was the 10th fastest-growing major metropolitan job market, Arizona State found.
The top-ranked large metropolitan regions in the 1997 survey were the Phoenix-Mesa area, Orlando and greater Seattle.
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Patrice Apodaca covers economic issues for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-5979 and at patrice.apodaca@latimes.com.
