Irvine has declared itself the pound-for-pound national champion of job creation.
City officials made the claim last week, based on data that show Irvine is home to 204,253 jobs and has a population of 215,529.
That puts its jobs-to-population ratio at 94.8%, the highest among the 100 largest cities in the U.S.
No. 2 was Irving, Texas—at 91.9%, with 202,897 jobs and a population of 220,702. Its top employers include Verizon Corp. and NEC Corporation of America. It’s also the headquarters for major companies, including oil and gas corporation Exxon Mobil Corp. and engineering company Fluor Corp.
Atlanta was No. 3. The city counts Delta Air Lines Inc., the Home Depot U.S.A. Inc. and Emory University among its largest employers. It has 364,901 jobs, which is equivalent to about 84.4% of the total population.
Different
The jobs-to-population ratio is different from the more commonly cited employment and jobless rates, which calculate how much of the labor pool of working-age individuals are employed or not working in a given geographic area.
The jobs-to-population ratio is based on where jobs are located, regardless of a worker’s city of residence.
A high jobs-to-population ratio is generally seen as a sign of local economic health whether employees live in the city or not. Workers often spend money near their workplaces, buying lunches or goods at local retailers. A high jobs-to-population ratio can bring numerous other municipal benefits, ranging from revenues from developers’ fees and business licenses. Those and other sources of tax revenue help maintain city services and public education to make it more attractive to residents, which can prompt new development that can boost a city’s property tax base.
The recent study by the city of Irvine followed a Business Journal story in November that pointed to Irvine and a handful of other Orange County cities as having relatively high jobs-to-population ratios, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Labor. The Business Journal report cited estimates, allowing for margins of error to account for mismatches of timing of reports by different agencies that track statistics and sort by cities, as well as varying rates of census participation.
The city’s research—which largely applied the same methodology nationally—was conducted by Craig Reem, Irvine’s director of public affairs and communications, and researcher Holly Henson.
Pool
The pool of the 100 largest cities in the U.S. had a cutoff on population of just more than 200,000. Irvine’s population gave it the No. 96 ranking.
“The larger the city, the harder it becomes to fill that high percentage,” said Esmael Adibi, director of the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University in Orange. “These are large cities, and when you see these percentages, at 80%, that’s impressive, too. Businesses go where they can find synergy with other businesses. They concentrate in a city or a smaller area. And then they grow. And because of geographical proximity with other cities, they can draw employment.”
Reem cited the Irvine Business Complex and Irvine Spectrum, both chock full of employers ranging from professional services firms to manufacturers, as examples of such patterns.
Master Plan
Irvine’s development as a masterplanned city also plays a role in the concentration of jobs here, according to Michael Hornak, a senior partner of Costa Mesa-based law firm Rutan & Tucker LLP and chairman of the Orange County Business Council, which has its offices in Irvine.
“Part of the city’s plan is to ensure that available jobs are not outpaced by population growth,” Hornak said. “Likewise, the city provides significant educational support … which is beneficial to work force education and development.”
Irvine isn’t alone with its high jobs-to-population ratio in Orange County. The November Business Journal report, which considered smaller cities here, found higher ratios in Brea and Los Alamitos, and rates similar to Irvine’s in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.
The broader study by Irvine city officials included Anaheim and Santa Ana, the two most populous OC cities.
Anaheim, Santa Ana
The jobs-to-population ratio for Anaheim is 52.8%, based on an employment total of 180,373 and population of more than 341,000, good for the No. 38 spot on the national list. Santa Ana came in at No. 67, with a rate of 39.2% based on 129,157 jobs and a population of 329,427.
The research by the city of Irvine also provides comparisons with other California cities. Los Angeles, which is the most populous city in the state and second-biggest in the U.S., has a jobs-to-population ratio of 38.9%, based on a population of 3.8 million and nearly 1.5 million jobs.
