Only the big easy is hit harder.

• Position: Triad - Greensboro-High Point metropolitan area

It's no secret that the Greensboro-High Point metro area--which covers Guilford, Randolph and Rockingham counties--has struggled, but just how bad has the job market been? From the end of 1999 through 2009, only one major metro area in the Southeast lost a higher percentage of its jobs--and that place was hit by a catastrophic hurricane that shrank its population 10% during the period.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

A recent report by The Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank, found a 5.6% decline in Greensboro-High Point's job base, 11th worst among the nation's 100 largest metros. In the 16-state Southeastern U.S., only New Orleans--where employment shrank 15.6%, due largely to Hurricane Katrina in 2005-fared worse. (Greensboro-High Point's neighbor, the Winston-Salem metro, isn't among the nation's 100 largest.) " Most of the cities that ranked low either bore the brunt of the housing bust or were involved in auto or auto-parts manufacturing," says Howard Wial, a Brookings fellow and co-author of the study. "In Greensboro, the reasons were more idiosyncratic."

The local economy's reliance on traditional industries such as textiles, apparel and furniture manufacturing made it especially vulnerable to job losses as manufacturers sought lower costs abroad. The result was an 11.4% unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of last year--compared with 9.7% nationwide--and a 4.6% drop in gross metropolitan product from its peak in the fourth quarter of 2006. Only 12 of the 100 largest metros...