ARIZONA – The number of jobs in Arizona are expected to increase steadily during the next two years, with education, health services and finance/professional services seeing the biggest gains.
According to projections from the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity, the number of jobs is expected to grow from 3 million at the end of the third quarter in 2018 to 3.11 million at the end of the second quarter of 2020. The addition of those 165,691 jobs represents an annualized growth rate of 2.7%.
It’s no surprise Maricopa County will see the bulk of the new job gains in with a 3.2% annualized rate and an addition of 138,457 jobs, followed by Pima County (11,905 jobs).
While the construction sector is projected to see the biggest percentage job gains, with annualized growth of 5.8%, followed by manufacturing (3.6%), in terms of sheer numbers, education/health services will see the biggest gains with 37,136 jobs, followed by professional and business services (26,177 jobs).
Another telling sign for construction jobs is even with the boom, the number of industry workers has not approached the highest pre-recession levels, when the workforce topped 245,000. As of December 2018, the latest numbers available from the state, Arizona’s construction employment sat at 170,000 workers.
Source: Phoenix Business Journal