Metro Atlanta is expected to add 3 million people and 1.5 million jobs by 2040, according to a projection released Wednesday by the Atlanta Regional Commission.
If that happens, growth across the 20-county metropolitan region -- from Hall County in the north to Spalding County in the south -- would match the population and employment explosion of the last three decades, an era that placed Atlanta among the nation's biggest metro areas.
Future growth could have been even greater, though. The recession sliced nearly a half million jobs from the ARC’s previous employment projection -- though it didn't change the population estimate.
That raises a question: Will more people be competing for fewer jobs, leading to high unemployment?
Not necessarily, said Mike Alexander, the ARC’s chief researcher.
“We will have fundamental demographic changes where there will be a lot more people who aren’t working,” said Alexander, who unveiled the Regional Snapshot report Wednesday at an ARC board meeting in downtown Atlanta. “Basically, the labor force as a share of population is expected to shrink.”
Alexander’s report will be used by local governments to plan road and transit networks. Among its more eye-popping projections: Of the 3 million newcomers – who include both newborn Atlantans and people coming from elsewhere - 800,000 will live in just two counties: Gwinnett (413,000 additional people) and Fulton (373,000.) Both counties will have more than 1 million people by 2040.
Henry (239,000) and Forsyth (202,000) counties are next in line for huge population gains. The city of Atlanta alone will add 250,000 people, according to the ARC.
In all, metro Atlanta's population will grow to 8.3 million by 2040, up nearly 57 percent from today, if the projection pans out.
Larry Collins foresaw a burgeoning business climate when he recently moved his fencing company from California to Forsyth County.
“There will definitely be a lot of growth and a lot of opportunity,” said Collins, who witnessed metro Atlanta’s northern push while living in Dunwoody a decade ago. “Cumming is growing a lot and adding schools and that helps my business.”
Future jobs will likely follow the region’s newcomers. And vice-versa.
Forsyth, Cherokee, Hall and Henry counties will more than double their job bases, the ARC projects. Yet the region’s traditional job centers – Fulton (360,000 new jobs), Gwinnett (220,000), Cobb (154,000) and DeKalb (135,000) counties – will continue to serve as the bulwark of metro Atlanta employment. Fulton alone, with Atlanta at its core, will have more than 1 million workers, or 28 percent of jobs across the region.
Troubled Clayton County, with its well-publicized school and housing woes, is the job and population outlier among the region’s 20 counties. It will see the smallest growth -- 40,700 new people -- and no other county will add so few jobs.
“That’s just the projection,” said Eldrin Bell, who chairs Clayton County’s commission. “We have the space and the land mass, including the airport, to out-distance the current projections. The airport has the potential to change all the projections for the south side.”
Clayton, with its 12.6 percent unemployment rate, was one of the hardest hit counties by the recession. The Atlanta region lost 186,000 jobs, or 7.5 percent of all jobs, during the downturn which technically started in December 2007 and ended June 2009, according to the Georgia Department of Labor.
The ARC survey, a compilation of hundreds of federal and private data sets, tries to account for economic downturns and other eventualities. Atlanta faces two, major population- and job-skewing events by 2012: a drastic reduction in water withdrawals from Lake Lanier; and the possibility voters won't approve a transportation referendum.
When the ARC’s Alexander last gazed into his crystal ball, in 2006, he predicted metro Atlanta would add 3.6 million jobs by 2030. Now, he estimates 3.2 million jobs by then. Atlanta will gain an additional half-million jobs between 2030 and 2040, he estimates.
The previous forecast, Alexander explained, was based largely on expectations that the explosive growth years of the 1990s would continue.
“We’ve had a net job loss the last 10 years,” Alexander said. “It was an unbelievable period of job loss when you factor in the lost construction and manufacturing jobs. The recession was a doozy.”
Slower projected job growth may not be all bad, though. Construction job growth, a hallmark of previous employment prognostications, disappeared from the 2040 study. One-fifth of the new jobs -- professional/technical, finance, wholesale trade, company management – pay considerably better than lower-wage construction and service jobs.
Health care jobs, overall, top the list. And they also go a long way in explaining Atlanta’s demographic and employment future. By 2030, one of every five metro Atlantans will be aged 60 or older, a staggering demographic shift that will require more nurses, doctors, technicians and bill coders.
The surge in retirees will also shrink the labor pool and keep unemployment below metro Atlanta’s current 10.2 percent rate, according to the projections.
Below are the top 10 counties for job growth between 2010 and 2040.
2010 2040 Total Jobs Percent increase
Fulton 672,000 1,003,000 360,000 53.7
Gwinnett 288,900 508,800 219,900 76.1
Cobb 304,700 458,400 153,700 50.4
DeKalb 289,700 425,100 135,400 46.7
Cherokee 43,600 116,100 72,500 166.3
Forsyth 57,700 129,000 71,300 123.6
Henry 45,200 109,000 63,800 141.2
Hall 66,300 124,900 58,600 88.4
Clayton 113,900 158,000 44,100 38.7
Douglas 37,600 75,400 37,800 100.5
Total (20 County) 2,200,000 3,700,000 1,500,000 68
Source: Atlanta Regional Commisison.
during the previous three decades.
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