How things are going in Northwest Indiana

It's my luck to live and work in northwest Indiana, and so I have an inordinate interest in economic conditions in northwest Indiana, which can, I'm sorry to say, be depressing.  As, for example, this:

Between June 1990 and June 2011, Household Employment in Northwest Indiana fell at an average annual rate of 0.13%, while Establishment Employment also fell, at an average annual rate of 0.09%.

But this is not quite fair, as employment had declined significantly from its cyclical peak (in, as it happens, June 2008)—Household Employment and Establishment Employment are both down by 9.6%

So, let’s look at average annual growth in employment from June 1990 to June 2008:
Household Employment:        +0.46%
Establishment Employment:   +0.41% 

In both cases, that’s a total increase of about 7.7% over 18 years…By contrast, total Establishment Employment grew between June 1990 and June 2011, at the following average annual rates in:

Indiana:                                   +0.90%
US:                                          +1.25%

(My excuse for starting with 1990 data is that earlier data are not available for northwest Indiana...Also, I should note that the household and establishment data for NWI are on a slightly different geographic basis.)