By one measure, Lawrence has seen two decades of job losses in a single year

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World Illustration

About one out of every 10 jobs in Lawrence and Douglas County disappeared in 2020, according to the latest report from the Kansas Department of Labor.

That’s already a pretty striking statistic on our pandemic times, but there’s an even more startling one if you dig deeper into the numbers: Douglas County has seen 22 years worth of job gains evaporate in a single year.

When the state recently released its December jobs report, I figured the year-end statistics marked a good time to put the county’s job losses in greater context. The report shows the Lawrence metropolitan area — which is Douglas County — has 48,400 nonfarm jobs. In other words, that is how many jobs are actually located in Lawrence and Douglas County, regardless of whether a county resident or someone else fills them. That’s down 5,000 jobs, or 9.4% — thus the nearly one out of 10 mentioned above — compared to December 2019.

I was curious to know the last time Douglas County ended the year with fewer than 48,400 jobs. My search lasted a lot longer than I expected. The last time job totals were that low in Douglas County was December 1998, when the county had 48,200 jobs.

In others words, it took Douglas County 22 years to get to our December 2019 peak of 53,400 jobs. It took one pandemic-fueled year to lose all those gains.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World Graphic

About one out of every 10 jobs in Lawrence and Douglas County disappeared in 2020, according to the latest report from the Kansas Department of Labor.

The most commonly cited job statistic — the unemployment rate — doesn’t really show the depth of those job losses very well. The December unemployment rate for the Lawrence metro area was 3.9%, up from 2.6% in December 2019. But remember, the unemployment rate doesn’t measure the number of jobs in Douglas County. It measures the number of people who live in Douglas County and have a job somewhere. So, Douglas County’s unemployment rate, for example, could hold steady or even decline while the number of jobs located in Douglas County drops. Such a scenario could be accomplished by more Douglas County residents simply getting jobs in Kansas City, for example.

The rate also is influenced by the number of people who are actually looking for work. If you give up on that task, you don’t get counted as unemployed. Whether people have given up or just moved away, a fair number of people have dropped out of Douglas County’s labor force. The current labor force of about 64,000 people is down about 2,000 people from a year ago.

So, it is fair to say that Douglas County’s job numbers look a lot more troublesome than its unemployment numbers. It took a lot of work and time to grow Douglas County’s job numbers. How much work and time will it take to grow them back just to where they were in 2019? Surely it will be less than 22 years, but the statistic shows how much of a bounce back the county really needs.

For what it is worth, there is one metro area that had it even worse, by that measurement. The Topeka metro area now has its lowest number of jobs since December of 1994. Not every metro area is in nearly as tough a spot. The Kansas side of the Kansas City metro area, for example, is at only a four-year low when it comes to jobs. Wichita is at a nine-year low and Manhattan is at a 17-year low.

While the statistic is interesting, it is not the only one you should look at. It can be misleading in its own right. For example, based on the information above, you might think job losses were worse in Topeka than Lawrence. That’s not accurate. Lawrence lost 5,000 jobs in 2020, while Topeka lost 3,100. The value of this statistic is it provides some context on the historical success — or lack thereof — of a community’s ability to add jobs. Losing a lot of jobs in a community that has a history of rapid job gains might be different than losing a lot of jobs in a community that doesn’t have a history of big job gains. Time will tell on that question, but clearly it is a mighty important one in Lawrence.

Here’s a look at some other facts and figures from the state’s December labor report:

• Statewide, the unemployment rate was 3.5% in December, up from 2.9% in December 2019. However, the unemployment rate did improve from November, when it was at 4.8%.

• Unemployment rates for other metro areas in the state were: Topeka, 3.9% in December versus 3.2% in December 2019; Wichita, 4.3% versus 3.2% in December 2019; Kansas City, 3.3% versus 2.8% in December 2019; Manhattan, 3.3% versus 2.4% in December 2019.

— Kansas has lost 60,200 jobs over the last year. That’s a decline of 4.2% from a year ago.

• Lawrence has the second-largest job loss — in terms of percentage decline — of any metro area in the state at 9.4% for the year. Its fellow university community Manhattan was the one metro that fared worse. It has lost 11.5% of its jobs, or 4,900 in total. Job loss totals from the other metro areas include: Topeka, down 2.8% or 3,100 jobs; Wichita, down 4.3% or 13,300 jobs; Kansas City, Kan., metro, down 3.3% or 16,200 jobs.

• December wasn’t a good month on any level for Lawrence jobs. As noted above, job totals were down from a year ago. They also were down from November. Lawrence lost 1,000 jobs since November. That was the worst showing in the state. Topeka, Wichita and Kansas City all either gained jobs or held steady since November. Manhattan lost 700 jobs since November.

• There has been a lot of talk of how the restaurant, bar, hospitality and hotel industries have been decimated during the pandemic. While that’s certainly true in Lawrence, the industry has held up better here than elsewhere. The leisure and hospitality industry ended the year in Lawrence with 900 job losses compared to a year ago. That’s a 12.7% decline for the year. That actually is better than the 15.5% statewide decline in the leisure and hospitality industry. That sector has lost 20,200 jobs statewide.

• Government jobs — which includes most positions at the University of Kansas — have been the hardest hit in Lawrence. The government sector has lost 2,200 jobs for the year. That’s a 13.2% decline. Statewide, the government sector is down by about 5.7%. The one community that is doing even worse than Lawrence is Manhattan. It has lost 3,000 government jobs. The sector is down 20% there. Obviously, these numbers show the type of stress public universities are facing.

If you feel like a numbers story isn’t complete without some graphs and charts, get ready to feel really completed. As I was digging through years of data, I found these charts from the Kansas Department of Labor that shows the historic job growth in each of the metro areas of the state. they show Kansas City and Wichita had a big dip during the recession of 2008, but also have had steep climbs since then. The charts for Lawrence, Manhattan and Topeka tell different types of stories. One of the most interesting parts of the Lawrence chart is it shows that in the 1990s, Lawrence had a steeper growth-line of jobs than Kansas City, but since the turn of the new century, it has been largely on a plateau, until this recent downturn.