Pinal County has the highest job growth of any county in Arizona, and a city official says Maricopa is playing a role in the county’s job gains.
Figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that Pinal County added nearly 10,000 new jobs between 2019 and 2023, an increase of 16%.
Statistics published by The New York Times Today’s numbers show that Pinal County has seen remarkable job growth over the five-year period, with construction up 79% and manufacturing up 78%.
The county’s growth in the leisure and hospitality sector was also significant – 41% between 2019 and 2023.
“The City of Maricopa was founded just over 20 years ago and has experienced significant growth since its inception,” said Rick Horst, Chief Strategy Officer of Maricopa InMaricopa. “Maricopa has been among the top 10 fastest growing cities in the country by percentage growth for several years. During our tenure, we have surpassed the population of any other city in Pinal County and have the largest population in the county.”
Horst, the former city manager whose job now is to bring new jobs to the city through economic development, said, “Good leadership, citizen participation, great vision and good old-fashioned hard work contribute to a community that creates new jobs and a better quality of life for our citizens. We are poised to create tens of thousands of new jobs in the coming years.”
Horst recently told the Maricopa City Council that Maricopa residents approved Proposition 482 nearly a month ago, awarding the 680-acre site to Rail Industrial Partners and Redevco Solutions for more than $66.6 million.
The planned business park will cover an area of 557,000 square meters and will have a rail network, meaning the park’s buildings will be accessible by rail, Horst said.
He estimated that the business park would bring at least 18,000 jobs to the area over time, but could add up to 36,000. The total investment in the park is estimated at around $1.4 billion, which Horst said is “equal to the value of all the residential neighborhoods in the entire city and more.”
Although Maricopa County added 161,875 new jobs between 2019 and 2023, this represents an 8% increase, half the percentage job growth in Pinal County.
The population of Maricopa County is about 4.6 million.
Labor market statistics showed that Pinal County created more jobs than the more populous Pima County, which added 9,297 new jobs from 2019 to 2023, an increase of 2.5%.
Pinal County has a population of nearly 470,000, while Pima has more than 1 million residents.
Graham County created 980 additional jobs from 2019 to 2023, a 10% increase.
According to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, Maricopa is the fifth fastest-growing large city in the country, consistent with local job growth trends.