Honolulu’s job market still had not recovered fully from the 2008-2009 recession by the end of last year, although the city fared better than three-quarters of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, according to a report due out today by the Brookings Institution.
The job count in Honolulu in the fourth quarter of 2011 was 2.8 percent below the fourth quarter of 2007 when the recession started, Brookings reported in its quarterly MetroMonitor. There were 78 cities with larger job declines during that span. Of the 21 cities ahead of Honolulu, only five registered actual job gains since the start of the recession.
On average, employment levels in the 100 cities in the fourth quarter were 4.7 percent below the pre-recession peak, according to the report.
|
RECESSION REBOUND
Net job increase or decrease between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2011:
INCREASE
| 1. McAllen, Texas |
4.0% |
| 2. El Paso, Texas |
2.1% |
| 3. Austin, Texas |
0.9% |
| 4. Houston |
0.7% |
| 5. Pittsburgh |
0.1% |
DECREASE
| 22. Honolulu |
-2.8% |
| 96. Las Vegas |
-13.1% |
| 97. New Orleans |
-14.0% |
| 98. Detroit |
-14.4% |
| 99. Sarasota, Fla. |
-14.6% |
| 100. Fort Myers, Fla. |
-15.5% |
Source: Brookings Institution MetroMonitor |
The city also did better than average in job growth between the trough of employment in the third quarter of 2010 and the end of last year, the report said. Honolulu’s job creation during that period rose 2.4 percent, 35th best out of the 100 cities surveyed.
While Honolulu’s unemployment rate of 5.3 percent in the fourth quarter tied for second lowest, it was still 2.9 percentage points higher than at the start of the recession. That was a wider gap than in 38 other cities.
Honolulu did not fare as well in terms of overall economic growth. The city’s gross metropolitan product, a broad measure of economic performance, grew by 2 percent between the end of the recession and the fourth quarter of last year. That ranked 47th among the top 100 metro areas. Between the GMP trough in the third quarter of 2009 and the end of last year, Honolulu’s economy grew by 2.9 percent, ranking it 85th on the list.
Housing prices here were 17.7 percent lower in the fourth quarter compared with the start of the recession. There were 34 cities with smaller declines. The average decline was 29.5 percent, according to the report. Pittsburgh ranked No. 1 with a 6.7 percent decline. Modesto, Calif., was at the bottom with a 65.2 percent decline.
Honolulu’s housing market has performed better over the past year. The 3.6 percent decline in isle housing prices between the fourth quarter of 2010 and the fourth quarter of 2011 was the fourth-smallest decline out of the 100 cities surveyed.
