AZ recovers jobs lost in slide; more growth seen

PHOENIX — Arizona has finally recovered all the jobs it lost during the recession.

And the prediction is for faster — though not spectacular — growth for the next two years.

New figures Thursday from the state Department of Administration show total seasonally adjusted employment hit 2.688 million in February. That finally surpasses the previous high of 2.683 million in October 2007 before the national and state economies tanked.

Arizona’s economy hit bottom at 2.37 million jobs.

It took far longer for Arizona to recover than the rest of the nation, acknowledges Doug Walls, the Department of Administration’s research administrator. But he said that’s a simple function of how hard the state was hit.

At the depth of the national recession, the country shed 6.3 percent of its jobs. For Arizona, he said, the loss was 11.7 percent.

Recovery has not been equal across the state.

The Phoenix metro area, including Maricopa and Pinal counties, is already at 114 percent of its pre-recession peak number of jobs. Coconino County is at 108 percent.

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But Walls said Pima County is at less than 77 percent recovery.

Yuma County is at less than 88 percent, Yavapai County is at 78 percent, and Mohave County is at just 31 percent (the latter he attributed to the area’s links to the Las Vegas economy).

Not surprisingly, Walls said the most rapid growth will continue to be in the Phoenix metro area, where he predicts another nearly 125,000 jobs in the next two years. That’s close to a 3.2 percent growth rate, compared with 2.9 percent for the prior two years.

Pima County grew at a rate of only about one-half of 1 percent in the prior two years. But Walls said the area should add another 14,393 jobs in the coming two years for a 1.9 percent growth rate.

“This is a turnaround we are seeing,” he said. There has been an uptick in both construction activity and hiring in the financial sector of Pima County’s economy “that were not seen in the last two years.”

He said the other 13 counties should add close to 17,000 jobs during the coming two years for a 2.1 percent growth rate, compared to 1.8 percent for the prior two-year period.

Separately, Walls reported that the state’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate dropped one-tenth of a point in February to 5.5 percent. The U.S. rate remained uncharged at 4.9 percent.

The private sector added 10,500 jobs last month, bringing year-over-year employment up by 81,600, a 3.7 percent growth rate.