2024 County Job Growth Results: NYC, Houston, Austin, and Dallas Lead Among Large Counties
Headlight’s 2024 job growth calculations are now available in our Annual Economic Scorecard, showing a slight majority (52%) of all 3,000+ US counties with positive growth in 2024 (Note: employment in the US grew just 0.6%). Data comes from the BLS’ Covered Employment data series, which is based on quarterly payroll filings from all US businesses (and is not a statistical survey like the monthly employment estimates that are published with a two-month lag).
County Employment Growth, 2024
Q1 2024 vs. Q1 2025
A notable pattern emerges on the map: nearly every state shows a patchwork of expanding and contracting counties. This mix bodes well to provide a stable state economy and create opportunities for workers to find jobs in nearby counties.
In addition, we can look at the industries that support growth across all US counties. For example, 69% of counties enjoyed positive growth in Health Services and Education (Private), and 63% of counties saw Government grow (including Public Education). These two industries provide an injection of new jobs for essentially two-thirds of the geographic area of the US – not just in major metros. By contrast, the Information industry (telecom, publishing, data centers) grew in just 37% of counties.
We also examine data by population levels, sorting counties by size. More mid-sized counties grew in 2024 (74%) versus large counties (65%) and small/micro counties (60%/47%). See below for our population range for each size.
Among large counties, Kings County, NY (Brooklyn) grew the fastest in 2024 at 7.2% - an impressive number for a population of 2.6 million people. Fort Bend County, TX (Houston) followed with 3.9% growth and Williamson County, TX (Austin) grew 3.1%. Bronx County, NY (also NYC) and Collin County, TX (Dallas/Plano) grew 3.0%.
Among mid-sized counties, Johnston County, NC (Raleigh) grew the fastest at 6.1%, Berkeley County, SC (Charleston) grew 5.9% and Union County, NC (Charlotte) grew 5.1%.
In our accompanying Annual Economic Scorecard, we provide a one-page profile on every county in the US, showcasing growth trends and rankings as shown below:
* Size ranges: Micro counties have less than 50,000 population; small counties have 50k up to 200k; mid-sized counties have 200k up to 500k; large counties have 500k or more.