Let's start with this. See previous for the variation in employment measures commonly used for local areas. This is relatively one of the more positive metrics for Allegheny County, but this is what employment change has looked like since the onset of Covid. Good or bad? I've explained that there are two 'economies' here and everywhere. The one providing goods and services to local residents and those that are 'export' oriented. Here some big losses concentrated in the former: accommodationand food services, retail, arts/entert.

Some have suggested I don’t get the reasons there is all this pushback against the sale of U.S. Steel. Believe me I do, but so much is based on nostalgia for an economic history that is just not coming back to Pittsburgh.🧵 How big was steel in Pittsburgh? In October 1952 there were over 379 THOUSAND manufacturing jobs in a 4-county region of SW Pennsylvania. The majority of which were directly or indirectly linked to the steel industry.

I'm surprised this took more than a nanosecond to show up in my timeline.

I won't rant on the 50K number, at least not now. The more important thing nobody is talking about is that in reality counties in Pennsylvania have no power or $ to really impact local jobs much at all. What does that mean? Twitter is too constrained a space to really explain, but consider the bulk of the PA county budgets are really pass throughs for human services. Economic development $ is minimal; Countys' have minimal role in land use planning, and no real business taxes..

OK, since this has become a daily topic for me now. Let's talk again about the factoid out there at Allegheny County lost 50,000 jobs between 2017-2022. This will become a thread through the day. I'll get to the technical details later, but up front you have to realize there isn't just one single employment metric. There is employment by place of residence, jobs county by place of work, and lots of variations based on sources and methodologies. Hold that thought.