Casa Grande AZ - Largest American Job Increases

SimplyHired.com, one of two major job listing sites that crawl all job vacancies posted online for America, listed a Top 10 Cities where jobs increased during 2012. Casa Grande, Arizona is at the top of that list, in the Number One Spot, with an increase of 95% in jobs from August to December.

The quick increase of jobs is nearly double the number of positions posted within the short four months from August to December. During the last week of March 2013, however, that number increased again and reached over 5,800 openings advertised, while in the first week of March, the number was 5,600. The current number of open positions is for a city of just over 48,500 residents by US Census reports from Census2010 and estimates calculatged in June 2012. The number of openings available is large for the market area, which includes Casa Grande, Chandler, Mesa, and Gilbert, as well part of south Phoenix.

According to the bSperling's website, the cost of living in Casa Grande is 14% below the national average. The median home cost is $92,800, with appreciation during 2012 at +7.74%.

Median age for residents is about 32 in Casa Grande, with the following breakdown of the working population over 18:

• 9.3% from 18 to 24,
• 26.4% from 25 to 44, and
• 19.6% from 45 to 64.

This provides a total of 55.3% of the population falling between ages 18 - 64. Another 30% of the population comprises youth under 18 and the remainder is a group of Seniors at age 65+. Unemployment is a bit over 10%, but over 5,800 jobs are advertised, with additional positions located in the hidden job market. Many of the jobs are high paying, but also require advanced education.

A large number of jobs came into being during the late summer and autumn of 2012, all within 25 miles of the center of Casa Grande.

Many of these jobs were created by the Gila River Community's enterprises, which include nearly two dozen large businesses owned and operated by the local Native Americans. In addition, the Health and Medical Industry gained additional jobs besides those at Gila River Health, among Technicians, Registered Nurses, Physicians, and support staff. The Trucking and Logistics Industry increased jobs as well. In the Banking and Finance Industry, Wells Fargo and Bank of America added positions for Customer Service, Personal Banking, and Mortgage Loan staff.

See the listings below for the top jobs and employers for 2013 in Casa Grande, Arizona. For job search among several thousand postings for this area, access SimplyHired.com and search under Casa Grande.

Before Spanish exploration in the Americas, the O’othom or Hohokam people in Arizona lived in village clusters along the Gila River Valley and used well engineered irrigation systems to grow crops. They harvested corn, beans and squash (the Three Sisters named by the Woodlands people to the east), along with wheat, pumpkins, cotton and tobacco.These Native Americans grew it all - food, cotton for clothing and gear, and tobacco for ceremonies and smoking.

The Hohokam were quite the engineers, also building 500 miles of canals that they diverted from their river with tools that they themselves built. Intervention of exploring peoples for three centuries and the construction of up river dams removed water from the natives' crops, which died.

However, the native lands and crops began to improve during The Great Depression and in 2013, the Vee Quiva Casino & Hotel planned an opening in the summer months, increasing jobs available between Casa Grande and Phoenix (see employers list above). The native nation owns 20+ large-scale business operations, all economically successful.

Our Hubber and friend GusTheRedneck offered some insightful photos he snapped back in the mid-1990s of Casa Grande, the local national monument, and the Gila River Indian Reservation (now also called "Community") at Sacaton, Arizona. I am grateful to be able to use them, because they show us a lot.

Having some 20 large business enterprises in 2013, the Gila River Community looked like a ghost town about 20 years ago. The residents of the reservation were stricken by diabetes during the 1990s, to the tune of about 54% of the that population as well. The photos below tell the tale better than I can tell it.

Gus tells me that the reservation owned a utility company that did not provide consistent electrical service. This caused problems at the dialysis clinic, which served 30 patients at a time, 10-12 hours per day. The power would go out often and the entire staff would run to hand pump the dialysis machines. Even visitors were enlisted to help pump the machines.

Diabetes and especially kidney failure can be the worst nightmare in health. An uncle of mine died years ago because the hospital dialysis machine he was using broke and the next closest machine was miles across town, but they could not get him there in time - although the EMTs tried. The dialysis clinic on the reservation must have been something of a chamber of horrors for the patients and those who worked in it.

1. Bank of America
2. Chandler Regional Medical Center
3. Gila River Healthcare and Gila River Indian Community
4. Banner Health
5. Wells Fargo
6. First Data
7. Randstad
8. Collabera - IT jobs
9. Starwoods Hotels and Resorts
10. Dignity Health
11. Brookdale Senior Living
12. Mercy Gilbert Healthcare
13. Pizza Hut
14. Volt Workforce Solutions
15. Home Depot

1. Registered Nurses (RN license)
2. Truck Drivers - CDL salaried drivers and Owner-Operators
3. Health-related Technicians
4. IT Engineers
5. Salespeople
6. Physicians
7. Hotel and Resort Jobs
8. Customer Service Representatives - Financial Products
9. Project Managers
10. Cooks
11. Manufacturing Technicians
12. Hospice Aides
13. Personal Living Assistants

This is Gus's view of the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. The adobe ruins were eroding pretty badly, leading the National Park Service to construct the heavy-duty awning over the building seen in the photo. Local history is that the older native groups like the Hohokam in the area built adobe dwellings as well as large central meeting houses and other structures in the village, along with 500 miles of canals for crop irrigation.

The villages followed a path of sorts along the Gila River Valley and when the Spanish entered the area in exploration, they found a thriving, rather advanced community. What happened to these people and where they went suddenly is not clear to historians and anthropologists. However, we have some of their buildings to admire.

The Community seems to be thriving with businesses today, whereas in the 1990s, Gus was able to see a couple of retail stores, perhaps a seed-growing operation, a dialysis clinic, and evidence of a utility company that was not operating very well. We hope that the success of the current reservation economically does not go the way of that of the Perquot in Connecticut, who are now asking for a bail out for their resort hotel.

Many thanks to GusTheRedneck for his information and photos!

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The following list includes the names of the Top 10 Cities and their percentages of job growth for 2012.

1. Casa Grande, AZ -- 95.9% job growth achieved in 2012.
2. Dallas TX 84.9%
3. Chicago IL 83.4%
4. Leesburg VA 76.9%
5. Colorado Springs CO 69.7%
6. Rosenberg TX 61.3%
7. McDonough GA 60.5%
8. Orlando FL 60.2%
9. Wasilla AK 58.5%
10. Monroe NC 57.5%