The Tampa Bay area's economy contracted slightly last year amid the housing bust and credit squeeze, ending years of huge growth.

And it had plenty of company in its misery. According to statistics released Thursday morning by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 30 percent of the country's metropolitan areas - including many Florida cities - felt their economies shrink in 2008.

Economic growth either slowed down or reversed in 60 percent of metro areas.

The bay area's economy contracted by 0.2 percent, from $110.7 billion in 2007 to $110.5 billion in 2008, making it the 25th-largest regional economy in the country.

In recent years, Tampa Bay's economy has grown by huge chunks. From 2004 to 2005, alone, it jumped more than 8 percent; as recently as 2001, the local economy came in at $77 billion. The Bureau of Economic Analysis, part of the Department of Commerce, does not have metro breakdowns going back before 2001.

The government analysis measures gross domestic product activity in the country's 366 metropolitan statistical areas. Downturns in construction, manufacturing, finance and insurance were blamed for restraining growth in many. Florida's economy has been hurt by the housing downturn in particular.

As a whole, the metro areas grew, but not by much. Metro growth slowed from 2 percent in 2007 to 0.8 percent in 2008.

The bay area, along with most of the state's metro areas, ranked in the bottom fifth of the country based on change in GDP.

The report singled out a cluster of Florida metro areas - Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Punta Gorda, Naples-Marco Island, Palm Coast and Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice - as among the hardest hit in the nation by the construction slowdown.

Among major metro areas, it cited Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, along with Reno, Nev., and Phoenix as hard hit.

In sharp contrast, Grand Junction, Colo., led all the winners, posting a GDP growth of 12.3 percent, due largely to growth in natural resources and mining.

Typically, data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis lag by a year. For instance, 2006 metro data was released at this time last year. This is the first time it has accelerated its research to provide 2008 statistics this quickly, coming at the same time as 2007 numbers.

Jeff Harrington can be reached at jharrington@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8242. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/jeffmharrington.