As cities and regions across the nation tally up their 2011 jobs growth, Tulsa, Oklahoma is earning praise for its impressive job creation and economic performance.
According to a list compiled by Fiscal Times, the Tulsa Metro with a 6.4 percent unemployment rate is ranked No.4 among the 100 largest US metro areas, in terms of job growth as compared to the number of jobs in Sept 2010.
Photo credit - Tulsa Metro Chamber
The culprit behind this jobs growth happens to be Tulsa’s Future, a privately funded job creation initiative set up by the Tulsa Metro Chamber.
Tulsa’s Future is now in its second phase (2011-2015), during which it aims to create 10,000 primary jobs with salaries of $50,000 or greater and generate a capital investment of $1 billion.
They’re off to a pretty good start too, because the program created more than 8,200 jobs in 2011, of which more than 4,000 were above the $50k annual target income. These 4,000 jobs now support other jobs with an estimated income in excess of $295 million.
In the first phase (2006-2010),Tulsa’s Future created 5,848 jobs, of which 7,669 had an average salary of $62,833. Their efforts added $482.6 million to the region’s payroll, brought in 19 new businesses and expanded 121 existing ones.
These five-year action plans were created with the participation of business leaders, community stakeholders and government officials in the region. More than 120 public and private sector regional partners are now involved in the Tulsa Metro Chamber’s economic development plans through this initiative.
Tulsa’s Future is not just trying to do business retention, expansion and attraction, but also working on workforce attraction and quality of life issues such as downtown revitalization and education.
“The Tulsa Metro Chamber and its many steadfast partners in economic development look forward to building upon the successes of this year to ensure the Tulsa area remains one of the nation’s top leaders in job creation,” said Tulsa Metro Chamber president and CEO Mike Neal.
If things indeed go as per plan, the 10,000 primary jobs created in Tulsa by 2015 will further create an additional 16,000 indirect jobs, totaling 26,000 new jobs in the region.
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