For those living in Philadelphia, signs of growth appear to be everywhere: thriving local businesses, new bio and tech firms downtown, young millennials flooding in from all corners of the country, and a surge in construction that it seems Philadelphia hasn’t seen since the 19th century.

The reality, however, is that the city still entertains a 26 percent unemployment rate. In the big picture, less people are working in Pennsylvania today than before the 2008 recession, and the state’s overall job growth has ranked half the national average for the last 75 years -- just over 1 percent per year.

Wells Fargo’s newly released annual economic report, headed by Mark Vitner, the bank’s senior economist, details growth and decline in the U.S. by state. For Pennsylvania, the report says, “growth could certainly be stronger, and with a rapidly aging population and outmigration, the state could certainly use more workers and the additional tax revenue that they would generate, particularly as the state tries to grow its technology sector.”

But what about our controversial job-maker, the fracking of the Marcellus Shale? Well, according to Vitner, Pennsylvania isn’t Texas, nor will it ever be Texas in terms of energy production. Natural gas prices have been on the steady decline, and with the price of oil so low, there are no signs of gas jumping back as we head into 2015. Pennsylvania’s big-name gas producer Range Resources has even announced capital expenditure cuts for the year, slashing their budget by 18 percent.

“Indeed, the energy company [Range] seems to have drilled one of the most productive wells in the region, allowing it to produce more gas at a lower cost,” Vitner writes. “More productive wells keep costs down for producers, but also mean that fewer jobs are created.”

Another concern the report cites is a softening of new construction statewide. Despite a gross excess of new apartment construction in cities like Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as a whole has a sluggish population growth with waning interest in new residential housing. Insult to injury, there were major, unavoidable layoffs last year at contracting (1200 employees at USIS), steel (the closing of McKeesport), and drug companies (Merck lost 600 in Montgomery county). With less new jobs being brought into the sector and an increasingly older population, the state has catalyst for another housing boom.

But the report also gestures to hope. On the upside, Vitner notes, Pennsylvania hasn’t experienced the same housing and job-loss woes as other states. Moreover, the state has a wide range of economic possibilities -- especially the agribusiness, which is expected to receive more attention in 2015:

“We expect Pennsylvania’s economy to post slightly stronger job growth in 2015 than it did this past year. Some of the areas that have not contributed that much to growth in recent years should come back on line in a more significant way this year, namely construction and financial services.”

At the very least, new corporate investments -- from the soon-to-be second Comcast Tower in Philly to a slew of brand-name warehouses being built in Lancaster -- are solid evidence that it will be a better year for jobs in the Keystone State.