Greater Phoenix added 91,300 jobs over the past year from January 2022 compared to January 2021 for a good start to the year as reported in the March Employment Report from the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity.
The number of people in the Greater Phoenix workforce filled over 2.3 million jobs in January 2022.
Hiring in the business professional, technical and scientific sector jumped 11,300 in a year-over-year comparison which is an 8.5 percent increase from the prior January. The number of hires ranked second to retail trade hiring, which increased by 17,000 in the year-over-year comparison.
Life science hiring in Greater Phoenix has paced the city to the top of the nation for emerging life science market job growth, according to a study by commercial real estate brokerage firm CBRE.
The company’s annual report for 2021 reported Phoenix with an 8.5 percent increase in life science hiring in year-over-year data. Phoenix’s growth topped job growth in legacy markets San Francisco (5.6 percent), Raleigh-Durham (5.0 percent), Boston (4.4 percent), Dallas-Fort Worth (3.8 percent) and Austin (3.7 percent).
“Phoenix has attracted and grown global innovators and leaders advancing precision medicine for the fight against cancer and other life-threatening diseases,” said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego. “Investments of more than $500 million in the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, and new growth under development, underscore the vibrancy of our bioscience and life science ecosystem. It’s resulting in good jobs with high wages to support families, and more importantly, creating a center of innovation and an emerging cluster of advanced therapeutics which will benefit Arizonans and people worldwide.”
The industry’s job growth also reflects in demand for more lab and research space, and Phoenix, again, is a leader in healthcare square footage under development.
CBRE reports 23.8 million square feet of labs under construction across the U.S. In the city of Phoenix alone, the Community and Economic Development Department shows more than 5.5 million square feet of bio/life science and primary healthcare facilities under construction or in the development pipeline.
Among the legacy life science markets, only the Boston metro area has more healthcare square footage in development than Phoenix.
In 2021, Wexford Science and Technology opened its first 227,000-square-foot ground-up lab and research facility on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus. Additional facilities are being planned on the campus. More than $3.5 billion has been invested in new bio/life science healthcare facilities in Phoenix, supporting more than 9,000 jobs anticipated over the next 24 months.
This is the second year in a row CBRE has highlighted Phoenix as a top emerging market in life sciences.
