Phoenix No. 7 among U.S. metros in job-growth

While new federal data indicates that Arizona lost jobs over the past three years, metro Phoenix began adding jobs last year and is among the best job gainers in the country, according to a Brookings Mountain Monitor report released today. The number of metro Phoenix jobs grew 1.5 percent between the low point in the third quarter of 2009 and the end of 2010, the report said. Though that sounds small, the Brookings Institution said that's the seventh-fastest growth rate among the 100 metro areas analyzed. Much of that growth came in the latter part of 2010, said Brookings research analyst Jonathan Rothwell. A Brookings report released in December said metro Phoenix was one of two dozen metropolitan areas in the world likely on the road to "full recovery" because of improvements in personal income and jobs. But today's report says that, despite the job growth, metro Phoenix's overall economic performance since the recession began in December 2007 puts it in the bottom fifth of the largest 100 metro areas based on job numbers, falling housing prices and weak improvement in gross metropolitan

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