Report: Bend area’s five-year job growth No. 2 in U.S.
The Bend-Redmond metropolitan area has added nearly 20,000 jobs over the past five years, the second-fastest rise of any metro area in the country over that period, a financial news website reported recently.
The list compiled by 24/7 Wall Street said the Bend-Redmond area (defined by the Census Bureau as all of Deschutes County) added 19,621 jobs in those five years, a 26.6 percent increase.
That’s “the fastest growth of any metro area in the western United States and second-fastest nationwide,” the article said.
Excluding government, every industry in the area grew in total employment over the past five years.
The broad categories of mining, logging and construction; leisure and hospitality; and education and health services each added more than 3,000 jobs since 2013.
Partially as a result, the county’s jobless rate has dropped considerably — from 8.5 percent in the summer of 2013, over the national figure, to 3.6 percent now, below the 3.9 percent national jobless rate.
The article also noted the metro area’s median household income is $66,273 a year.
The only metro area to fare better than Bend-Redmond over the past five years: Lake Charles, Louisiana, with a five-year increase of 24,482 jobs, for 28.3 percent growth. Following Bend on the list; Elkhart-Goshen, Indiana, St. George, Utah and Greeley, Colorado.
