Wichita local government jobs grow, but slower growth seen in private sector jobs

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Compared to peer cities, Wichita performs well in growth of local government jobs, but poorly in creating private sector jobs.

I’ve prepared statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor for Wichita and two groups of peer cities. One group is our Visioneering peer cities. A second group includes those cities plus cities that Visioneers traveled to on official visits, plus a few others. The results are shown nearby. (Click on charts for larger versions, or click here to use the interactive visualization.) This data is annual data through the complete year 2013. The presentation of the data is indexed, so that each area starts at the same relative level and we can compare the relative growth over a period of years.

Local government job growth in Wichita compared to peer areas.
Local government job growth in Wichita compared to peer areas.
When we look at the growth of local government jobs, we see that Wichita does relatively well, usually in the top half of job growth compared to these peer areas.

Private sector job growth in Wichita compared to peer areas.
Private sector job growth in Wichita compared to peer areas.
Looking at private sector job growth, Wichita appears near the bottom. The private sector is growing very slowly in Wichita, compared to our peers. We must remember that it is the private sector that pays for government jobs and the other costs of government. When we couple slow growth of the private sector in Wichita with faster growth of local government jobs, we’re setting the stage for even slower growth of the type of jobs that produce prosperity.

Interestingly, Wichita performs better in private sector job growth than Springfield, Illinois. I chose to include that as a peer metropolitan area because that’s the immediate past city in which Gary Plummer worked. He was president of that city’s Chamber of Commerce, and is now president of the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Wichita also does better than Wichita Falls, Texas. That city is the immediate past home of Tim Chase. He was the head of Wichita Falls Economic Development Corporation, and he’s now president of Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition, a subsidiary of the Wichita Metro Chamber and the primary organization in charge of economic development for the Wichita area.

As Wichita prepares to make decisions regarding economic development — including a possible sales tax to fund economic development — we need to be aware of our recent history. Wichita leaders contend that Wichita can’t compete in economic development with other cities because the budget for incentives is too small. But when making this argument, these leaders don’t include all incentives that are available and used. As shown in the analysis Contrary to officials, Wichita has many incentive programs, the excuse that Wichita does not have incentives is not valid.

You may use the visualization yourself and draw your own conclusions. Click here to open it in a new window.

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