A worker at a construction site in Los Angeles, California, Jan. 29, 2016. (REUTERS)

A worker at a construction site in Los Angeles, California, Jan. 29, 2016. (REUTERS)

U.S. businesses added more jobs in the past two years than at any other time since the 1990s, according to The White House.

The unemployment rate currently stands at 4.9 percent, down from 10 percent in 2009. Over the past six years, American businesses created 14 million new jobs. More than 2.4 million of these jobs were added between 2014 and 2015.

People use computers at a job fair in Detroit, Michigan, March 1, 2014. (REUTERS)

People use computers at a job fair in Detroit, Michigan, March 1, 2014. (REUTERS)

Most of this job creation is occurring on the East and West Coasts.

The most jobs — 464,200 — were created in California, while New York city boasts  the highest increase in jobs (156,400) for a metropolitan area. The Los Angeles metro area was second with 135,100 jobs and the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas was third with 98,900 jobs.

North Dakota was the state that lost the most jobs — 19,000 — from 2014 to 2015, while the metropolitan areas that experienced some of the steepest declines included Lafayette, Louisiana (-5,500), Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, Illinois (-4,500), Shreveport-Bossier City, Louisiana (-3,000) and Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, Pennsylvania (-2,800).

Three metropolitan areas in the state of Louisiana were in the top 5 when it comes to largest job declines.

Nationwide, unemployment rates dropped in 47 states and the District of Columbia in 2015, while increasing in two states, and remaining unchanged in one state, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which also showed job growth in 280 of the 386 metropolitan areas.

The White House refers to this growth as evidence that “the United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world.”

But critics point out that, while employers are hiring, many of the jobs are in the retail and service sectors. Those jobs are not as secure as many manufacturing and white collar jobs, nor do they pay as much. In fact, while the latest U.S. unemployment report said the economy added 242,000 jobs, average hourly wages declined.

This map uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to show the number of new jobs by metropolitan area. (Graphic by HowMuch.net)

This map uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to show the number of new jobs by metropolitan area. (Graphic by HowMuch.net)

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