Gross Domestic Product Per Employee
Gross domestic product (GDP) per employee is the broadest proxy for productivity for states and metropolitan areas. (No true measure of productivity is available for states or substate areas.) GDP per employee is calculated by dividing GDP by total employment.
GDP for the nation, states, and metro areas are produced in both current dollars and inflation-adjusted (real) dollars. The inflation adjustment is unique to each geographic area. Only annual data are available by state and metropolitan area. Though estimates of current dollar GDP by state go back to 1963, inflation-adjusted data are available only back to 1987. Gross domestic product data are available by metro area only since 2001; county data are not available.
Since GDP is a measure of total economic output, total employment (not the more common wage and salary employment) is used to calculate the productivity measure. The only source of total employment, which includes estimates of the number of proprietors as well as the total number of wage and salary workers, provides annual estimates since 1969 for the United States, Arizona, and the state’s six metropolitan areas.
The latest current dollar GDP per employee figure by metropolitan area is presented on Arizona Indicators, along with data for the same year for the United States, the U.S. metro average, and Arizona. The metropolitan area figures are also presented as a percentage of the U.S. metro average. Arizona’s current dollar figure as a percentage of the national average is presented back to 1969. The inflation-adjusted percent change in GDP per employee is displayed, beginning in 1988 for the United States and Arizona and in 2002 for the metropolitan areas.
U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis: http://www.bea.gov/regional/index.htm. Estimates by state are released in June, consisting of advanced (preliminary) estimates for the preceding calendar year by sector, as well as revised estimates for the prior year by sector and subsector. Metro area estimates are released in September, consisting of very preliminary estimates for the preceding calendar year by sector, as well as revised estimates for the prior year by sector and subsector.
The BEA also is the source for total employment. State and national employment data are reported nine months after the end of a year: http://www.bea.gov/regional/spi/default.cfm?selTable=SA25N&selSeries=NAICS. Metropolitan area employment data are released 16 months after the end of a year: http://www.bea.gov/regional/reis/default.cfm?catable=CA04.
The GDP estimates for the latest year are labeled as “advanced” or “accelerated”—an abbreviated set of mostly preliminary data and a simplified methodology are used to generate these estimates. Even after the estimates are revised, some of the inputs to the calculation of GDP by state and especially by metropolitan area are estimated. The annual employment figures also are estimates. No distinction is made between full-time and part-time employment.
Gross Domestic Product Per Employee, 2009
Visualization Notes:
Reasonable targets for Arizona are for the state’s GDP per employee, a measure of productivity, to be near the national average and for the larger metro areas to have a figure near the U.S. metro average. The most recent data for GDP per employee by metro area are for 2009, a recessionary year. These estimates remain subject to revision. The preliminary data indicate that GDP per employee was less than the U.S. metro average in five of Arizona’s six metro areas, with only the Phoenix area’s figure above average.
Gross Domestic Product Per Employee as a Percentage of the National Average, 2009
Visualization Notes:
GDP per employee, a measure of productivity, was nearly equal to the national metropolitan average in Metro Phoenix in 2009. In the other five metro areas in Arizona, GDP per employee ranged from 24-to-39 percent below the U.S. metro average. A number of factors account for the geographic variation, with the industrial mix being the largest factor.
Gross Domestic Product Per Employee in Arizona as a Percentage of the National Average
Visualization Notes:
A reasonable target is for Arizona’s GDP per employee to be near the national average. This has generally been the case historically. The percentage of the U.S. average was never below 99 from 1969 through 1980. Since 1992, the percentage has fluctuated from 95 to 99 percent of the national average. Arizona’s GDP per employee percentage fell in 2009 and 2010, dropping to 94.6, the lowest figure since 1991.
Gross Domestic Product Per Employee in Arizona and the United States, Inflation-Adjusted Percent Change
Visualization Notes:
The annual inflation-adjusted percent change in GDP per employee typically ranges from slightly negative to 2 percent nationally, with the range broader in Arizona. The change in Arizona varies by year from less-to-more than the national average. Arizona experienced slight declines from 2007 through 2009, with a performance much weaker than the national average in 2009 and 2010.
Gross Domestic Product Per Employee, Inflation-Adjusted Percent Change
Visualization Notes:
Annual inflation-adjusted percent changes in GDP per employee in Arizona’s metro areas were erratic from 2002 to 2009, with declines common in each metro area though the losses in Metro Phoenix have been marginal. In these eight years, the Phoenix and Yuma areas had the strongest performance with annual average increases above the U.S. metro area average of 0.8 percent. The annual averages for Lake Havasu City and Prescott were negative.
Data Source
U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis: http://www.bea.gov/regional/index.htm. Estimates by state are released in June, consisting of advanced (preliminary) estimates for the preceding calendar year by sector, as well as revised estimates for the prior year by sector and subsector. Metro area estimates are released in September, consisting of very preliminary estimates for the preceding calendar year by sector, as well as revised estimates for the prior year by sector and subsector.
The BEA also is the source for total employment. State and national employment data are reported nine months after the end of a year: http://www.bea.gov/regional/spi/default.cfm?selTable=SA25N&selSeries=NAICS. Metropolitan area employment data are released 16 months after the end of a year: http://www.bea.gov/regional/reis/default.cfm?catable=CA04.
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