Does this say something broader about the region's economy and Philadelphia's attraction as a headquarters town?
Perhaps. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of "headquarters" employees in Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania suburbs has jumped 50 percent since the 2001 recession, to 31,100 jobs. Nationwide, headquarters jobs rose 8 percent, to 1.9 million, in that period.
The agency has not said where the new jobs came from. Some likely are part of Comcast. But other companies have opened or expanded headquarters in the region, such as Tyco Electronics Ltd. and the U.S. arm of Shire P.L.C., both in Tredyffrin in Chester County.
A first-of-its-kind study by the bureau, published in May, looked at headquarters jobs in big U.S. counties. The study, using mid-2006 job data, placed Philadelphia about where economists think it should be for its size: roughly comparable to the counties that include Manhattan, Seattle and Cleveland.
It significantly trailed some headquarters-rich areas, such as the counties that include Minneapolis; Charlotte, N.C.; and Cincinnati. But Philadelphia wasn't at the bottom of the list - to the joy of civic boosters.
"The economy of this region today is based on businesses that are up and coming rather than declining, and it was not always that way in the last 50 years," said Thomas G. Morr, president and chief executive officer of Select Greater Philadelphia, an affiliate of the chamber of commerce.
"You're right in the thick of the big cities," said Paul Ferree, government economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics and author of the bureau study.
Ferree looked at 275 of the largest U.S. counties and calculated their relative concentration of headquarters jobs, using a mechanism called location quotients.
