Almost all U.S. cities to lose jobs in 2009: forecast

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - All but five U.S. cities will experience job losses this year, with New York suffering the largest decline, according to a forecast released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Saturday.

Global Insight, an international economic forecasting firm that put together the outlook for the mayors' group, projected that by the end of 2009 one-third of all metropolitan areas in the country would have experienced no overall job growth for the first decade of the century.

New York will likely shed 181,000 jobs this year, with more than 50,000 in the financial services industry alone, the firm said. Los Angeles will lose 164,000 jobs. Overall, 171 cities will see job losses in excess of 2 percent through 2009.

Unemployment rates will rise above 10 percent this year in 70 of the 363 metropolitan areas in the United States, Global Insight said.

In November, 23 cities had jobless rates of at least 10 percent, according to a report released this month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while 121 had rates of at least 7 percent.
Metropolitan areas are home to 90 percent of the country's wage income, according to the firm.

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