At a time Wichita leaders promote forward momentum in the Wichita economy, year-over-year employment has fallen.
Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics released employment statistics through February 2018. 1
One of the tables released is “Over-the-year change in total nonfarm employment for metropolitan areas, not seasonally adjusted,” which shows changes in jobs from February 2017 to February 2018. 2 For this time period for the Wichita metropolitan area, the number of nonfarm jobs fell from 294.7 thousand to 292.3 thousand, a decline of 2,400 jobs or 0.8 percent.
In February, 313 metropolitan areas had over-the-year increases in nonfarm payroll employment, 69 had decreases, and 6 had no change.
Over the same period, the unemployment rate in the Wichita MSA fell from 4.6 percent to 4.1 percent. The labor force fell from 309,336 to 304,886.
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Notes
- Bureau of Labor Statistics. Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment Summary. Available at https://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.nr0.htm. ↩
- Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over-the-year change in total nonfarm employment for metropolitan areas, not seasonally adjusted. Available at https://www.bls.gov/web/metro/metro_oty_change.htm. ↩