By Dave Gatton and Carolyn Merryweather
June 23, 2003

The nation's mayors received sobering employment news at the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting in Denver, CO, when Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick, Chair of the Council for Investment in the New American City, released its updated jobs report showing that metro areas suffered far greater job losses in 2002 than previously reported. The report, issued on June 7, 2003, and titled the U.S Metro Economies Metro Employment Outlook, June 2003 Update, is part of a series of U.S. Metro Economy reports, sponsored by the Conference and the Council, documenting the important role cities play in the national economy.

The report highlights the fact that U.S. metro areas are the engines of the nation's economy, but that job cuts in metro areas have stalled growth nationwide. The original January report stated that metro areas had lost 646,000 jobs in 2002. In the June report, however, based on updated government figures, that number was raised to 1,150,000 jobs lost in metros.

Additionally, job loss numbers for 2001 also saw revisions. In January, U.S. metro areas were believed to have produced 344,000 jobs in 2001, while in June that number was revised to only 142,000 new jobs. Overall, 213 metro areas lost jobs in 2001. "As mayors, I think that all of us had a gut feeling that the recession of 2001 and 2002 was having a really tough toll on working families across a broad set of income groups," Kilpatrick said.

Among the metro areas hit hardest by the recession, the report concluded that New York City lost 117,000 jobs (revised from 82,000) San Jose lost 92,000 (revised from 49,000), and Detroit lost 59,000 jobs (revised from 25,000). Kansas City, which the January report stated had gained 10,000 jobs in 2002, saw a revision that put them at a loss of 17,000 jobs. More than 75 percent of the top 100 metro areas lost jobs in 2002.

"Our report concludes that the job picture for our nation will not improve until the economic engines of our economy begin to create more jobs...Therefore, we have more ground to make up to put Americans back to work again," Kilpatrick told the Mayors Business Council at its plenary session.

Forecasting future job growth in metro areas, the report predicts that employment in the top 20 metro areas will not reach pre-recession (early 2001) numbers until the second quarter of 2005.

In spite of the current job situation, in 2003 the top 20 metro areas in the nation are still expected to generate $4 trillion in economic activity, which is 36 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product.

"It is our job and our responsibility to report these job losses so that our nation and we as leaders of our metro areas can respond...Right now our people are concerned about jobs; and we must speak out as Metro leaders to give voice to those concerns," Kilpatrick concluded.