The Cities Creating The Most Middle-Class Jobs

New Geography reports on where middle class jobs are declining and growing:

There are eight metro areas that boast more mid-level jobs today than in 2007. The list is dominated by Texas cities, led by Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, which has added 17,000 mid-skill jobs — an increase of 7.6% – among the 95,000 new jobs generated in the region. The largest numeric increase is in Houston-Sugarland-Baytown, which has 60,810 more mid-skilled jobs, up 7.4%. The Houston metro area also has easily led the nation in overall job growth since 2007, adding a net 280,000 positions.

Texas metro areas also come in third and fourth: in San Antonio-New Braunfels, middle-income employment rose 3.4%; in Dallas-Ft. Worth-Arlington , 3.1%. Nearby Oklahoma City comes in fifth with 2.1% growth in middle-income employment, sharing the merits of relatively low costs and a strong energy economy.

The working class and the endangered middle class may be favored topics of discussion in the deepest blue regions, but for the most part these metro areas have failed to bolster their middle-skilled labor forces. Los Angeles-Long Beach leads the league with the biggest net loss of mid-skilled jobs since 2007, down by 112,300, or 6.1%. Chicago had the second-largest numerical decline, some 102,100, or 7.6%, followed by New York, which lost 82,350 such jobs, 3.4% of its total in 2007. In contrast, notes economist Tyler Cowen, Texas has not only created the most middle-income jobs, but a remarkableone-third of all net high-wage jobs created over the past decade.

The loss of manufacturing jobs is clearly part of the problem here; despite the recent resurgence in the industrial sector, the U.S. still has 740,000 fewer middle-skill manufacturing jobs than in 2007. Chicago and Los Angeles remain the nation’s largest industrial regions, but they are also among the most rapidly de-industrializing areas in the country. New York City, once among the world’s leading industrial centers, with roughly a million manufacturing workers in 1950, is down to around 75,000. In contrast, industrial employment has been expanding in the Houston, Seattle and Oklahoma City metro areas, and recently even Detroit.

In contrast, New York, Chicago and L.A. have seen job gains in such low-wage areas as hospitality and retail, as well as a smaller surge in high-end employment — notably in information and business services. But the welcome growth in these positions is not enough to make up for the big hole in middle-class employment. Since the recession, for example, New York has lost manufacturing and construction jobs at a double-digit rate while hospitality employment grew 18% and retail 10%. Los Angeles and Chicago showed similar patterns, but actually did worse in higher-wage sectors, like professional business services.

You'll want to read the whole article and check out the impress table at the end of the article.