Skip to footer

Top 10 metros for job growth

Some metropolitan areas have a booming jobs market, thanks to energy, manufacturing, or sometimes just the right mix of highly diversified industries. Here's a look at the 10 metros that have seen the largest percentage increase in jobs over the past 12 months:

3. Columbus, Ind.: +7.2 percent

Andrew Laker/The Republic/AP/File
Taylor Baker stops to say hello to her five-month-old daughter, Graesyn Steinkoenig, in this January 2012 photo at Cummins Childcare Center in Columbus, Ind. Cummins has sparked big job growth in Columbus, but it recently has begun to lay off workers as its sales picture deteriorates.

Columbus has ridden the manufacturing boom, especially the rising fortunes of engine manufacturer Cummins, over the past three years. A whopping 37 percent of its workforce is involved in manufacturing, which saw job growth of 14.9 percent in the past year. One site-development and relocation magazine named Columbus No. 1 in cities that "have found a way to thrive in the midst of adversity."

But Columbus isn't celebrating. The worldwide slowdown in manufacturing has begun to make its impact felt in Indiana. Cummins trimmed its revenue forecast by $1 billion in its latest quarterly report and has begun laying off professional staff at its Columbus headquarters. The layoffs are part of planned cuts of up to 1,500 workers worldwide. More than almost any other metro, Columbus's future hangs on what happens to manufacturing in the coming months. 

8 of 10
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.