Total nonfarm employment in the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn Metropolitan Statistical Area stood at 1,979,900 in March 2017, up 40,200 or 2.1 percent over the year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. During the same period, the national job count increased 1.5 percent. Assistant Commissioner for Regional Operations Charlene Peiffer noted that the Detroit metropolitan area has had over-the-year employment increases each month since June 2010. (See chart 1 and table 1; the Technical Note at the end of this release contains metropolitan area definitions. All data in this release are not seasonally adjusted; accordingly, over-the-year analysis is used throughout.)

The Detroit metropolitan area is made up of two metropolitan divisions—separately identifiable employment centers within the larger metropolitan area. The Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills division, which accounted for 62 percent of the metropolitan area's employment, added 26,600 jobs from March a year ago, a gain of 2.2 percent. The Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia Metropolitan Division, the area’s other employment center, added 13,600 jobs over the 12-month period, a 1.8-percent rise.

Industry employment

Professional and business services, Detroit’s largest supersector, added 9,800 jobs from March 2016 to March 2017. The Detroit area’s 2.6-percent growth rate in professional and business services employment was lower than the nationwide increase of 3.2 percent. (See chart 2.) Of the two divisions, only the Warren division posted growth in this sector.

Mining, logging, and construction had the second largest employment increase in the Detroit area, up 6,700 from March 2016. The 10.9-percent rate of job growth was the highest among the local area supersectors that posted annual employment gains since last March. While both divisions added jobs, the rate of Detroit’s employment growth (15.4 percent) was faster-paced than Warren's (8.9 percent).

The manufacturing supersector gained 6,300 jobs from March 2016. Both metropolitan divisions had over-the-year employment gains, with Warren adding 4,500 jobs and Detroit adding 1,800 jobs. The manufacturing sector’s local job growth rate of 2.6 percent exceeded the national rate of 0.3 percent.

Education and health services added 5,400 jobs in the local area, up 1.7 percent from the previous March. Job gains were concentrated in the Detroit division, up 4,600. Nationwide, education and health services employment grew by 2.3 percent.

Four other supersectors in the Detroit area gained more than 1,000 jobs since last March—financial activities (+4,500), government (+3,500), leisure and hospitality (+2,400), and trade, transportation, and utilities (+1,500). Local employment growth in the financial activities sector, at 4.1 percent, exceeded the national increase of 2.2 percent. Government employment grew by 1.9 percent in the local area; nationwide, government employment rose by 0.6 percent. Local employment in leisure and hospitality and in trade, transportation, and utilities increased by 1.3 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively, similar to the national increases of 1.6 percent and 0.6 percent.  

Metropolitan area employment data for April 2017 are scheduled to be released on Friday, May 19, 2017.

Technical Note

This release presents nonfarm payroll employment estimates from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program. The CES survey is a Federal-State cooperative endeavor between State employment security agencies and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Definitions. Employment data refer to persons on establishment payrolls who receive pay for any part of the pay period which includes the 12th of the month. Persons are counted at their place of work rather than at their place of residence; those appearing on more than one payroll are counted on each payroll. Industries are classified on the basis of their principal activity in accordance with the 2012 version of the North American Industry Classification System.

Method of estimation. The employment data are estimated using a "link relative" technique in which a ratio (link relative) of current-month employment to that of the previous month is computed from a sample of establishments reporting for both months. The estimates of employment for the current month are obtained by multiplying the estimates for the previous month by these ratios. Small-domain models are used as the official estimators for approximately 39 percent of CES published series which have insufficient sample for direct sample-based estimates.

Annual revisions. Employment estimates are adjusted annually to a complete count of jobs, called benchmarks, derived principally from tax reports which are submitted by employers who are covered under state unemployment insurance (UI) laws. The benchmark information is used to adjust the monthly estimates between the new benchmark and the preceding one and also to establish the level of employment for the new benchmark month. Thus, the benchmarking process establishes the level of employment, and the sample is used to measure the month-to-month changes in the level for the subsequent months.

Reliability of the estimates. The estimates presented in this release are based on sample survey and administrative data and thus are subject to sampling and other types of errors. Sampling error is a measure of sampling variability—that is, variation that occurs by chance because a sample rather than the entire population is surveyed. Survey data are also subject to nonsampling errors, such as those which can be introduced into the data collection and processing operations. Estimates not directly derived from sample surveys are subject to additional errors resulting from the special estimation processes used. The sums of individual items may not always equal the totals shown in the same tables because of rounding.

Employment estimates. Measures of sampling error for state CES data at the supersector level are available on the BLS website at www.bls.gov/sae/additional-resources/reliability-of-state-and-area-estimates.htm. Information on recent benchmark revisions for states is available at www.bls.gov/sae/.

Area definitions. The substate area data published in this release reflect the delineations issued by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget on July 15, 2015. A detailed list of the geographic definitions is available at www.bls.gov/lau/lausmsa.htm.

Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Mich. Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Oakland, St. Clair, and Wayne Counties in Michigan.

The Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia, Mich. Metropolitan Division includes Wayne County in Michigan.

The Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, Mich. Metropolitan Division includes Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Oakland, and St. Clair Counties in Michigan.

Additional information

More complete information on the technical procedures used to develop these estimates and additional data appear in Employment and Earnings, which is available online at www.bls.gov/opub/ee/home.htm. Industry employment data for states and metropolitan areas from the Current Employment Statistics program are also available from the BLS website at www.bls.gov/sae/.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: (202) 691-5200; Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339.