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December 2, 2012

Metro economies show recovery from recession

The Norman Transcript

NORMAN — The Oklahoma City and Tulsa metro areas ranked No. 6 and No. 14 in the nation for economic performance from 2011 to 2012 and No. 71 and No. 106 in the world, respectively. The rankings from the Brookings Institution highlight the two areas’ performances compared to 300 cities worldwide.

The report, released Thursday, said central Oklahoma had partially recovered from the recession and outperformed the nation on job growth but remained behind in gross domestic product. That’s similar to 40 percent of the worldwide metropolitan areas surveyed.

According to published reports, Oklahoma City’s Chamber of Commerce predicted an employment growth of 2.3 percent in 2013, compared to 2.8 percent this year.

Brookings said three quarters of the fastest-growing metropolitan economies this year were located in developing Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. By contrast, almost 90 percent of the slowest-growing metro economies were in western Europe and North America.

Not surprisingly, the top job growth areas noted in the report were energy, professional services and retail trade.

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