The Service-Sector Recovery in Cleveland

A popular belief in urban development is that the service sector provides a perpetual source of employment growth. Service-sector industries include transportation and public utilities, wholesale and retail trade, government, finance, insurance, real estate, and other consumer and business services. Except for an occasional quarter or two of employment loss during recessions, service-sector employment has increased steadily nationwide. Service-sector employment is especially important to the Fourth District to replace jobs lost in the shrinking local manufacturing sector, In many areas of the Fourth District, however, rates of servicesector growth often have been among the lowest in the nation. Moreover, in five of the first six quarters of the current national recovery, employment in Cleveland’s service sector declined (see chart 1). Indeed, service-sector employment has been on a downward trend since 1980.