On global scale, Salt Lake’s economic
recovery strong
By Steven Oberbeck
The Salt Lake Tribune
Published: December 1, 2010 07:34AM
Updated: November 30, 2010 11:35PM
The Great Recession wasn’t kind to the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, but it is managing a decent rebound from
the depths of the downturn, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution.
Brookings’ Global MetroMonitor, which rated the economic performance of the 150 leading metropolitan areas of
the world, indicated that prior to the recession, the Salt Lake City area ranked in the top third.
Although its business activity during the depths of the recession slipped to one of the weakest of the world’s
communities surveyed, the subsequent rebound has propelled it to near its previous heights.
Salt Lake City’s economic showing since 1993 reflected the U.S. economy as a whole, said Alan Berube, one of the
co-authors of the report by Brookings and the London School of Economics that was released Tuesday.
“Before the recession, the area was one among the stronger performers in the context of the U.S., but like the rest
of the country … [the] Salt Lake area [was hit] pretty hard” by the downturn.
Salt Lake City ranked 48th on Brookings’ list for its economic performance from 1993 to 2007, a period when its
average annual employment growth reached 2.2 percent and its per-capita income growth rate was a respectable
2.7 percent.
During the recession, however, Salt Lake saw its employment growth rate decline 3.5 percent, while its per-capita
income fell at a 6.5 percent rate. That poor performance resulted in Utah’s largest urban area falling to 123rd on
Brookings’ list.
Despite the fall, Utah’s rebound has been stronger than all but 14 of the 50 U.S. cities surveyed.
“The size of the Salt Lake metro area’s economy has been growing again [in terms of per-capita income], and your
businesses are now more productive,” Berube said. “You’re just not growing jobs yet.”
However, that may be changing.
Job growth in Utah has started to pick up in recent months, said Mark Knold, chief labor market economist for the
Utah Department of Workforce Services.
“We’re now growing back off the recession bottom. It isn’t a real strong rate of growth, only around one-half of one
percent” he said. “But considering where we were, it is an improvement.”
During the Great Recession (2007 to 2009), Utah lost about 80,000 jobs and managed to add only about 7,000
this year.
“It’s going to take awhile for us to work ourselves out of the hole we’ve been in,” he said. “But, hopefully, the worst
is now behind us.”
Berube noted that the Brookings Institution’s analysis of the largest 150 metropolitan areas worldwide indicated that
many in Asia and Latin America have fully recovered from the global economic crisis, while American and European
metro areas are still struggling to regain their footing.
And that shift, he said, presents challenges and opportunities.
Rapid growth in the world’s emerging economies is forcing established metro areas in the U.S. and Europe to
pursue more productive models for economic growth, he said.
“Those models should include expanding exports to capitalize on growing demand in those emerging markets for
high-value goods and services,” he said.
Utah is already moving in that direction, said Lew Cramer, CEO of the World Trade Center Utah.
He pointed out that, in 2009, Utah was the only state to report positive export growth, albeit only a slight increase
as compared with 2008. And through the first nine months of this year, Utah is already ahead of 2009 by 37
percent.
“Although most of our exports still go to Europe, we’ve made a commitment to increase our efforts to [encourage
Utah businesses to] increase exports to nations such as China, Mexico and India.”
In mid-2009, the Brookings Institution launched a series of quarterly reviews that looked at the health of America’s
largest metro-area economies, including Salt Lake City.
Brookings newly released Global MetroMonitor represents an outgrowth of that effort. It looked at the economic
performance of 150 metropolitan areas, including 50 each from the United States, Europe and the rest of the world.
steve@sltrib.com
recovery strong
By Steven Oberbeck
The Salt Lake Tribune
Published: December 1, 2010 07:34AM
Updated: November 30, 2010 11:35PM
The Great Recession wasn’t kind to the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, but it is managing a decent rebound from
the depths of the downturn, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution.
Brookings’ Global MetroMonitor, which rated the economic performance of the 150 leading metropolitan areas of
the world, indicated that prior to the recession, the Salt Lake City area ranked in the top third.
Although its business activity during the depths of the recession slipped to one of the weakest of the world’s
communities surveyed, the subsequent rebound has propelled it to near its previous heights.
Salt Lake City’s economic showing since 1993 reflected the U.S. economy as a whole, said Alan Berube, one of the
co-authors of the report by Brookings and the London School of Economics that was released Tuesday.
“Before the recession, the area was one among the stronger performers in the context of the U.S., but like the rest
of the country … [the] Salt Lake area [was hit] pretty hard” by the downturn.
Salt Lake City ranked 48th on Brookings’ list for its economic performance from 1993 to 2007, a period when its
average annual employment growth reached 2.2 percent and its per-capita income growth rate was a respectable
2.7 percent.
During the recession, however, Salt Lake saw its employment growth rate decline 3.5 percent, while its per-capita
income fell at a 6.5 percent rate. That poor performance resulted in Utah’s largest urban area falling to 123rd on
Brookings’ list.
Despite the fall, Utah’s rebound has been stronger than all but 14 of the 50 U.S. cities surveyed.
“The size of the Salt Lake metro area’s economy has been growing again [in terms of per-capita income], and your
businesses are now more productive,” Berube said. “You’re just not growing jobs yet.”
However, that may be changing.
Job growth in Utah has started to pick up in recent months, said Mark Knold, chief labor market economist for the
Utah Department of Workforce Services.
“We’re now growing back off the recession bottom. It isn’t a real strong rate of growth, only around one-half of one
percent” he said. “But considering where we were, it is an improvement.”
During the Great Recession (2007 to 2009), Utah lost about 80,000 jobs and managed to add only about 7,000
this year.
“It’s going to take awhile for us to work ourselves out of the hole we’ve been in,” he said. “But, hopefully, the worst
is now behind us.”
Berube noted that the Brookings Institution’s analysis of the largest 150 metropolitan areas worldwide indicated that
many in Asia and Latin America have fully recovered from the global economic crisis, while American and European
metro areas are still struggling to regain their footing.
And that shift, he said, presents challenges and opportunities.
Rapid growth in the world’s emerging economies is forcing established metro areas in the U.S. and Europe to
pursue more productive models for economic growth, he said.
“Those models should include expanding exports to capitalize on growing demand in those emerging markets for
high-value goods and services,” he said.
Utah is already moving in that direction, said Lew Cramer, CEO of the World Trade Center Utah.
He pointed out that, in 2009, Utah was the only state to report positive export growth, albeit only a slight increase
as compared with 2008. And through the first nine months of this year, Utah is already ahead of 2009 by 37
percent.
“Although most of our exports still go to Europe, we’ve made a commitment to increase our efforts to [encourage
Utah businesses to] increase exports to nations such as China, Mexico and India.”
In mid-2009, the Brookings Institution launched a series of quarterly reviews that looked at the health of America’s
largest metro-area economies, including Salt Lake City.
Brookings newly released Global MetroMonitor represents an outgrowth of that effort. It looked at the economic
performance of 150 metropolitan areas, including 50 each from the United States, Europe and the rest of the world.
steve@sltrib.com
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