While the overall U.S. electrical wholesaling market is expected to grow at a decent but still somewhat pedestrian 5% in 2018, some local market areas appear to be positioned to grow at more than double that rate.
When Electrical Marketing’s editors analyzed the year-end employment data for the core construction and manufacturing business segments in more than 340 local metropolitan markets, we spotted quite a few metros that were growing at twice the year-over-year (YOY) percent increases for construction employment (+4%). Many of these metropolitan areas are included in the table linked at the bottom of this page, which highlights the 50 largest metros when ranked in terms of EM’s Core Electrical Potential (the total of electrical contractor and industrial estimated sales potential). To see the data in a map format click here. To download it in an Excel table click here. And to download our sales forecasts for all of the metros and states, click here.
On this list are five markets that enjoyed construction employment growth of more than 10% YOY from Dec. 2016: Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV (+17.3%); Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA (+15.6%); San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX (+12.9%); Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR (+10.7%); and Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, FL (+10.2%).
Not as many metros stood out for their YOY growth in manufacturing employment. Leading the industrial pack was Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL with a +12% YOY boost. The Orlando market also enjoyed construction employment growth through Dec. 2017 of +6.9%, most likely due in large part to the expansion of the Walt Disney World Resort and a $2.1 billion airport project. Those numbers will only increase when jobs like the $500 million expansion of Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center and a $430 million KPMG training complex start cranking up.