Following accolades from magazines like Forbes and Inc.; the Milken Institute is pushing Knoxville as one of the best - performing metro areas in the country. See the story below from today's Knoxville News Sentinel.
Last week Forbes ranked Knoxville second in the US in the "Happiest Place to Work" list.
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Knoxville's employment renaissance has caught the eye of a prominent think tank.
The Milken Institute, a nonpartisan research group based in Santa Monica, Calif., on Thursday released its list of the country's best-performing metro areas.
Knoxville came in at No. 25 among the 200 largest metros, jumping 33 spots compared to 2011.
The Milken index measures job, wage, and technology performance to compile its rankings — with employment growth weighted most heavily — but does not use quality-of-life indicators such as commute times or housing costs.
The Knoxville area garnered particularly strong marks for job growth between 2010 and 2011.
The local economy has shown signs of strengthening even since the Milken Institute conducted its analysis. In the final weeks of 2012, a trio of industrial companies announced expansion plans that are slated to add more than 300 jobs in the area.
That list includes Italian tile-maker Del Conca, which said it would build a $70 million plant in Loudon County that would create 178 jobs.
Rhonda Rice, executive vice president of the Knoxville Chamber, noted Thursday that Knoxville's best performance came on the most recent statistical measurements and said 2012 saw even more of an increase. "We're very optimistic about good things on the horizon here for the Knoxville region," she said.
Knoxville had the highest ranking of any large metro area in Tennessee. Nashville was listed at No. 27, Chattanooga at No. 80 and Memphis at No. 99.
The country's top-ranked metro area was San Jose, Calif., followed by Austin, Texas, and Raleigh, N.C.
Las Vegas, Modesto, Calif., and Lakeland, Fla., were ranked at Nos. 198, 199 and 200 on the list.
