KC Metro Employment: Annual Average 1996-2007
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
The 2000's have not been a good decade for local employment growth. The annual employment figure for 2009 was actually lower than the 2000 annual figure by 8,500 employed people. The 2001-2002 recession was the first setback. Recovery from that recession was not particularly robust in the Kansas City area as two industries that are very important to Kansas City's economic well-being (transportation and information) were particularly hard hit. It seemed that employment growth was beginning to regain some traction when the 2008-09 recession struck. We expect employment losses to stop in 2010 before growing again in 2011.
More economic data is available at MetroDataline.
