Figures just released by Wichita State University’s Center for Economic Development paint a mixed picture for Kansas’ employment future. While unemployment continues to decline across the state, the number of non-farm jobs is also declining, everywhere in Kansas except for Kansas City, the shinning growth spot in Kansas.
While Kansas only experienced a small net decline in employment in 2017 (-500), a larger negative number was only saved by the expansive growth in Kansas City. While Kansas City reported numbers reflect both Kansas and Missouri, there is definitely rapid growth in both Wyandotte and Johnson Counties. In fact, Kansas new job growth is out pacing Missouri new job growth in the Kansas City market.
The Missouri side, which had 56% of the area’s workforce, added 4,300 jobs from May 2017 to May 2018, and the Kansas side added 11,700 jobs.
For the 2017 calendar year, the Kansas City, MO-KS metropolitan area added more than 16,500 new workers to bring the employed workforce in the area to 1.08 million employees. This follows several years of strong employment growth for the metropolitan area, which has averaged 18,200 new jobs each year from 2012 to 2017.
Compare that to the growth/ (actually decline) in Wichita that loss 2,000 jobs and Topeka that loss 800. The good news – kind of – for Wichita is the projected job loss for 2018 is just 200, and the economy is projected to rebound in 2019 with the addition of 2,500 jobs.
For Topeka, the net projected loss of jobs in 2018 is 100, but the projected net new jobs in 2019 is just 300 jobs.
Although Kansas City is attracting a lot of warehouse, distribution and manufacturing businesses, the major growth remains in the professional and business services subsector and the education and health services sector, which have added a combined average of new 8,500 workers annually to the Kansas City economy from 2010 to 2017.