By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services via PinalCentral
Want a new job?
Consider administrative support, health care, construction or food service — particularly in the suburbs around Phoenix.
Those are the sectors of the economy and the areas of the state that the state Office of Economic Opportunity predicts will add the most jobs through the middle of 2019.
Overall employment is expected to grow by close to 153,000 jobs over the two-year period studied. That translates out to about 2.6 percent a year, faster than the estimated 1.9 percent annual increase in population, though down from 2.7 percent for the prior two years.
That, said Doug Walls, the agency’s research administrator, should lead to further declines in the state’s 4.8 percent unemployment rate, if for no other reason than Arizona still trails the nation.
What that also is likely to do is lead to a tightening of available labor — along with employers forced to offer higher wages to attract and keep workers.
But that 2.6 percent annual growth is not spread universally among all industries, or even geographically.
