In the annual benchmark revisions from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) a few months ago, New York-White Plains/Kiryas Joel-Poughkeepsie, NY fell from one of the top markets for employment gains to rank near the bottom of RealPage’s top 150 markets list with job losses of up to 61,200 as of March.
However, according to the BLS’ latest data release, New York once again led the nation for job gains with a total of 32,400 jobs created in the year-ending April. That was much lower than the six-figure gains reported pre-revision throughout much of 2024 and into 2025, but enough to put the Big Apple back on top.
What caused such a turnaround for New York? Primarily it was the end of reported job losses in the Education and Health Services sector, specifically the home health care subsector. Beginning last April, state officials in New York made changes to the Consumer-Directed Financial Assistance Program which reduced employment in the home health care industry. Now those losses are rolling off the annual employment change numbers.
Additionally, annual losses as of March in the Trade/Transportation/Utilities and Professional/Business Services industries have turned to gains as of April. New York’s economy appears to be turning around.
Las Vegas remained among the top job gain markets in April, followed by fellow tourism magnet Orlando. Phoenix, Dallas, San Jose and Charlotte each added close to 15,000 jobs for the year to rank from #4 to #7. Raleigh/Durham, San Diego and Austin also remained on the top 10 list in April.
On the other side, Washington, DC continues to lose jobs with a total retrenchment of 97,100 jobs lost in the year-ending April. In addition to the steep losses in Washington, other significant job loss leaders for the year include Portland, OR, Detroit, Boston, Anaheim, Baltimore and Minneapolis/St. Paul, with losses from 8,800 to 35,400 jobs. Los Angeles not only fell off March’s top 10 job gain list in April, but recorded job losses of 8,100 instead. A total of 72 of RealPage’s top 150 markets reported job losses for the year-ending April, which was seven fewer than in March.
At the end of April, the top 10 job creation markets summed to 163,300 new jobs compared to 61,300 jobs for the same 10 markets last month, an increase of 102,000 new jobs with New York’s turnaround. Compared to last April, this month’s top 10 job creation markets added 11,000 fewer jobs, a 6.3% decrease.
The next 10 markets (#11 to #20) of RealPage’s top job gain markets created 72,000 new jobs for the year, which was 27,200 fewer jobs than the year before and 7,200 less than in March.
Job Growth
Unlike the top job gain markets, which tend to be large in population and employment, smaller markets usually dominate the top markets for annual percentage change in employment. As we typically see, state capitals, college towns and resort or tourist destination cities dominate this list. Six of March’s top job growth markets returned in April.
As it has for the past four months, Atlantic City continued to lead the nation for employment growth in the year-ending April with a 3% increase, although that was down 50 basis points (bps) from March. Other hotspots for percentage gains in employment include Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR, Wilmington and Las Vegas with percentage gains between 2% and 2.4%.
Reno was close behind at #5 with an April employment growth rate of 1.8%. Baton Rouge, LA, Fort Collins-Loveland, CO, Fresno, CA and Myrtle Beach, SC tied for #7 with 1.7% growth and Greenville/Spartanburg, SC rounded out the top 10 with a moderate 1.3% increase in employment. Las Vegas was the only market to appear on both the top job gains and top job growth lists.
Nine of the top 10 job growth markets had greater growth rates than one year ago, led by Fort Collins (440 bps increase), Atlantic City (250 bps increase) and Baton Rouge (230 bps increase). Growth slowed from last year only in Fayetteville among the top 10. Compared to March, only four of the top 10 had greater annual job growth (averaging 30 bps) and six had decreases (averaging 37 bps).
Outside of the top 10 growth markets, San Jose, Bakersfield, CA, Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL, Charlotte, Orlando and Vallejo/Napa, CA comprised the next few markets with growth rates of 1.1% to 1.3%. Top 10 job gain market Raleigh/Durham joined Las Vegas, San Jose, Charlotte and Orlando among the top 20 for job growth percentages.
Not surprisingly, job loss leaders Washington, DC and Portland, OR had the deepest percentage decreases (-2.9% each) with smaller markets Lansing, MI, Toledo, OH Fayetteville, NC and Eugene, OR also dropping 1.8% to 2% in employment from last year.
