2018 ECONOMIC SUMMARY WITH FORECASTS FOR 2019-2023
The Tulsa MSA comprises seven counties: Creek, Okmulgee, Osage, Pawnee, Rogers, Tulsa and Wagoner, whose aggregate population is estimated to be 995,747 or 25.3 percent of the population of the state of Oklahoma. The gross product or value of all goods and services produced in the seven-county MSA is estimated to be $58.7 billion (2009 dollars), or 33.4 percent of the Oklahoma economy.
Tulsa’s major industries are aerospace, including aerospace manufacturing and aviation; health care; energy; machinery; and transportation, distribution and logistics. Several clusters, or groups of companies within industries that buy or sell to each other in the manufacture of goods for export from the area, have disproportionately large concentrations of employment relative to the U.S. concentrations and are positioned to grow within the Tulsa MSA: Aerospace parts manufacturing is 3.4 times more concentrated in the Tulsa MSA than in the U.S.; and oil and gas production and machinery manufacturing, which is 9.5 times more concentrated, accounts for 1.8 percent of highly productive employment, which produces 11.2 percent of Tulsa’s gross regional product.
Tulsa’s concentration of fabricated metal product manufacturing is 2.8 times the U.S. concentration, but its heat-exchanger manufacturing sub-cluster is 58.7 times more concentrated than at the U.S. level. General qualities that attract new companies to grow these clusters and others to Tulsa are a sound infrastructure, a cost of doing business that is 11 percent below the U.S. average and a cost of living that is eight percent below the U.S. average. The strong concentrations of employment in these Tulsa-area clusters indicate that the Tulsa-area clusters are important to their respective industries nationwide and that they absolutely are important locally.
Tulsa’s infrastructure for business includes the Tulsa Port of Catoosa, an inland port that makes bulk shipping to and from coastal ports accessible and economical, and two central networks for broadband interconnect. Plugging Tulsa’s target producing and service sectors into Tulsa’s formidable infrastructure requires a quality work force, and Tulsa’s work force is known and paid for its productivity.
In 2018 Tulsa-area employment rose by 11,360 jobs, or 2.5 percent, as oil prices steadily rose most of the year and manufacturing grew nearly twice as fast as overall employment, at 4.7 percent. In 2018, Tulsa-area employment grew 39 percent faster than the state and 47 percent faster than U.S. employment. Tulsa real gross product grew 6.9 percent, while Oklahoma and the U.S. grew at 4.4 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively.
The Tulsa Regional Chamber was able to announce 5,089 jobs in new and expanding industries in 2018, growing 3.9 percent over 2017 and surpassing growth of 2.5 percent in non-farm employment in the Tulsa MSA. Because Tulsa’s cost of doing business is 11 percent under the U.S. average due to low rent, energy costs and taxes, Tulsa in 2019 will remain a prime location for industry prospects looking to relocate or expand at a steady pace. In 2019, Tulsa’s gross product of goods and services should grow 7.0 percent to $62.8 billion. After growing 2.5 percent in 2018, employment in 2019 will grow more slowly at 1.9 percent as trade-policy issues dominate the news.
For more data, read the complete 2019 Tulsa Economic Profile.
