How Many Jobs Exist Inside Detroit's City Limits?

**boogiechillen** · February-03-11, 03:44 PM

It has become common knowledge that the majority of our region's jobs are found outside of the central city. To quote the Detroit Works Project's website, "Over 77% of all the region’s jobs are 10 miles or more from central Detroit." I have hear that jobs are more decentralized in Metro Detroit than in any other region of comparable size. Still, there are people who live and work in the city, as well as a large amount of people who live in the suburbs and work in the city. Does anyone have any idea how many jobs are located inside the City of Detroit?

Crain's publishes a book of lists annually that ranks the city's top employers, but this is far from a complete picture. It is easier to gather job totals at county and state levels than city levels. Does anyone have any creative ideas of how to figure out how many people work in the City of Detroit?

**ndavies** · February-03-11, 04:42 PM

Did you Try www.semcog.org or www.census.gov

This link list the extimated josbs in the city for 2002 and 2005
http://www.semcog.org/Data/Apps/comp...omy.cfm?cpid=5

**JMarx** · February-03-11, 05:03 PM

Originally Posted by ndavies

Did you Try www.semcog.org or www.census.gov

http://www.semcog.org/Data/Apps/comp...omy.cfm?cpid=5

If you maneuver around the SEMCOG website you can find a "Historical Employment" PDF [[look under "Data by Subject"). In this PDF, for the year 2000, I see the following in Table 4:

YEAR: 2000
EMPLOYMENT TOTALS
State of Michigan: 5,654,522
Region [[defined by SEMCOG): 2,673,052
Livingston County: 59,159
Macomb County: 381,864
Monroe County: 54,444
Oakland County: 910,363
St. Clair County: 64,516
Washtenaw County: 232,175
Wayne County [[including Detroit): 970,531
Detroit: 345,424

So if we just count, say, Wayne/Oakland/Macomb, Detroit only has 15% of the jobs. However, within Wayne Co, Detroit does have 3x as much as its closest competitors [[Dearborn: 108k, Livonia: 105k)

**Mikeg** · February-03-11, 05:14 PM

SEMCOG's web site used to have a report on a study which identified the number of people commuting across county lines for each SE Mich. county and how they broke out by destination county. Unfortunately, when I clicked on the bookmark, I got a 404 and some Googling didn't find it either. I though maybe I had saved it to my hard drive, but a search there came up empty. Here is the URL where it had been located:
http://www.semcog.org/Products/pdfs/CommutingSEMI.pdf

If I remember correctly, the study was produced by someone at Wayne State prior to 2005. If you can find it, the data behind the commuting patterns analysis could provide a rough answer to your question.

**spiritofdetroit** · February-03-11, 07:12 PM

recently saw the figure at 300k..

**Carey** · February-03-11, 08:28 PM

It's interesting Detroit has between 300,000 and 345,000 total jobs these days. While I don't have the stats right here, I'm pretty sure I recall the city had about 345,000 MANUFACTURING jobs after WW II.

**boogiechillen** · February-04-11, 08:45 AM

Originally Posted by spiritofdetroit

recently saw the figure at 300k..

Where did you see this figure?

**Zacha341** · February-04-11, 08:49 AM

Not enough... I worked in the western suburbs [[Farmington Hills, Southfield, Livonia etc.) for a time period totally nearly 20 years before I could find full-time work WITHIN the city as I have now... I still work one part-time job in a border suburb. I'm glad I do not have the daily commute now with gas as it is...

Even the temp agencies I've used in the past were suburban. It was just a given, so I adapted years ago to seek work beyond 8 mile when nothing could be found in the city.