Jobs added in 2010

Finally, it appears that a majority of Arizona's largest businesses are growing again. Reversing the trend in last year's report, it appears that more big companies added to their staffs than reduced them over the past 12 months, according to The Arizona Republic's annual tally of the state's 100 largest employers. Companies have been adding workers to expand service lines, grab more market share or just to accommodate customer demand as the economy ramps up again after the recession. That's a much-needed improvement from the 2010 report, when the list showed that about half the companies had reduced their employee levels and slightly more than one-third expanded them. The Arizona Republic 100 list is not scientific; it relies on numbers self-reported by companies. Those employee numbers can vary throughout a year, especially for seasonal businesses. And some firms complicate the comparisons because they don't distinguish between full- and part-time workers. Still, the list helps identify how Arizona's largest employment sectors are changing. Some trends: - Health-care and financial companies appear to be adding the most workers. - Most of the higher-paying manufacturing and technology companies, such as Raytheon Co., Intel Corp., Honeywell, Freescale Semiconductor and Lockheed Martin Corp., are largely standing still or losing employees in the state, perhaps to their overseas operations.

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