Los Angeles and Chicago Metros Top $1 Billion in Industrial Sales Potential

When you think about the fastest-growing industrial markets in the United States, you may be surprised to find out that not all of them are in the Industrial Midwest, in the Oil Patch or along the Gulf of Mexico.
EM’s editors have updated their annual industrial market sales potential data, and through the end of last year, some of the faster-growing metros were outside of the typical industrial hot spots.
When measured by year-over-year growth in industrial employment, some mid-sized market areas beat out some of the nation’s larger markets. For example, the Tulsa, OK, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) added 3,800 industrial employees in 2023, and the Kansas City metro added 3,300 industrial employees. Using Electrical Wholesaling’s sales-per-employee multipliers, each of these employees represents $2,650 in industrial sales potential for electrical distributors, reps and manufacturers, so Tulsa and Kansas City checked in with an additional $10.1 million and $8.7 million in sales, respectively.
Despite the industrial growth of some of the smaller markets in EM’s Top 50 Industrial Markets (see chart below), familiar MSAs still have the most potential. For example, the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA MSA topped all metros with approximately $1.3 billion in industrial sales potential and 475,000 industrial employees, followed by the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI MSA with $1.1 billion in estimated  sales potential and 413,700 industrial employees.
The other top five markets were New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA MSA ($925.6 million); Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX MSA ($814.4 million); and Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI MSA ($671.3 million).

You can download sales estimates for more than 300 MSAs by clicking on the Green Box below.