Chad Halcom| Crain’s Detroit Business
Metro Detroit may look like a laggard in job growth with other parts of the state, but there are reasons that experts think this picture will change in time.
The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics shows metro Detroit adding 12,500 jobs in November, the most recent month for which local figures are available, for 0.7 percent growth compared with a year earlier. Statewide, the rate was 1 percent.
Those figures draw on the BLS Current Employment Statistics (CES) monthly survey of more than 140,000 businesses and government agencies. Later this year, the BLS will release its more comprehensive Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for the same period.
“You’ve got a bit more of a slowdown in growth for Southeast Michigan compared with the rest of the state, but it’s overstated because of the methodology of the CES data,” said Donald Grimes, senior research associate for the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Labor, Employment and the Economy.