The Dayton area added 48 hundred jobs during the past year. That’s from a report released this week by a national business journal called On Numbers. As WYSO’s Emily McCord explains, it’s the second year in a row of job growth.
The report is based on numbers from the most recent figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s a nearly a 1.3 percent increase from the year before. That’s encouraging news, says Richard Stock, an economist from the University of Dayton.
“When you’ve been in a situation where 10 years in a row it’s been job losses, I think the job growth is an exciting thing to watch," says Stock.
Stock says the numbers represent a mix of high and low paying jobs-the majority are professional and technical positions, like engineers and scientists. He credits that to growth at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The other bulk of the jobs are in leisure and hospitality. But Stock says there is one area where jobs are not growing.
“The drag on us continues to be the government sector. We’re still experiencing some loss. The concern is that local government still has more hits to take," says Stock.
Dayton ranks number 36 in the 100 biggest job markets. Stock says he hopes the upward trend will continue, but he says that will be dependent the economic recovery nationally.