With the advent of EMSI’s affordable, easy-to-use economic modeling tools, many more people are able to conduct economic impact analyses without an extensive background in economics. This document describes some of the basic pitfalls that more inexperienced researchers should avoid when conducting an economic impact study. The three primary pitfalls are:

1.  Expressing impacts in terms of sales rather than income
2. Ignoring the “with and without” principle (also known as the “Broken Window Principle”)
3. Failing to account for general equilibrium effects

Click here to view/download the full document (PDF): Economic Impact Analysis: Common Pitfalls

In this whitepaper, EMSI explains the importance of  labor market analysis for businesses, site selectors, and economic development professionals. The paper covers types of key information needed and the challenges of local labor market research using public sources, and some basic features of EMSI’s Strategic Advantage web-based system that make it the top labor market analysis solution for many policy professionals, researchers, and consultants. An appendix reviews the most commonly used public data sources.

Read the full whitepaper (PDF):  Labor Market Analysis for Site Selection

Update: This whitepaper has been expanded — read the latest version.

The Department of Labor’s Employment & Training Administration recently released a Training and Employment Notice titled “Building and Sustaining an Educated and Prepared STEM Workforce.” The notice provides a short introduction to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) occupations, along with the federal workforce system’s role in fostering it.

With that context, here at EMSI we thought this provided a good opportunity to show how you can analyze your region’s STEM workforce with EMSI’s Strategic Advantage (SA) web-based tool, which integrates dozens of sources to make custom regional labor market research fast, flexible, and simple. With SA, you can see vital statistics on jobs, wages, trends, projections, education levels, skills, and more for any occupation or occupation group, with comparisons to larger areas like states or the whole U.S. You can also see which regional industries are likely to employ workers in these occupations and and further analyze those industries. For a more education-oriented view, the tool allows you to see which regional training providers are offering courses and producing graduates in those occupations. And finally, you can view the occupations as a “career cluster” with various career ladders, or pathways, within it having various specializations.

For quick analysis, go to SA’s Educational Analyst module, and select the “Career Clusters” tool, then the “Career Cluster Data” report. Select timeframe and other options, making sure you choose to aggregate data by cluster. Generate the report and drill down in the “Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics” cluster for regional labor market information for STEM pathways and occupations. (Click the thumbnail for full-size image.)

To get started with more analysis, you’ll need to find a list of STEM occupations using the standard codes and titles used by the federal government. A great place to do this is at the Dept. of Labor’s O*NET site. In Strategic Advantage, go to the Career Pathways module and select the Occupational Analysis > Occupational Programs tool. This will allow you to create an occupation group using O*NET-SOC codes. Find and select the occupations and save the group as “STEM”.

With this list of STEM occupations (and with the individual occupations within it), you can use SA’s Career Pathways module to:

1. View O*NET data on knowledge, skills, and abilities (Occupational Analysis > Occupational Competencies)
2. Compare two occupations’ knowledge, skill, and ability requirements (Occupational Analysis > Compare Occupations)
3. See regional educational institutions that offer related programs (Occupational Analysis > Occupational Programs)
4. See the regional “labor pool” of occupations are compatible with certain STEM occupations (Transition Workers > Into Occupation)
5. Create maps of postsecondary completions in related programs (EMSI GIS)

To just get labor market information, you’ll have to define the list using plain SOC codes in Strategic Advantage’s Economic Forecaster module. These are the same as O*NET-SOC codes except without the 2-digit decimal extension, which allows O*NET to have slightly more detailed occupational categories. With this list, you’ll be able to:

1. See which postsecondary courses of study are linked to these occupations (Educational Analyst > Find Programs)
2. View extensive regional labor market reports with jobs, wages, trends, and projections (Economic Forecaster > Occupation tool > Jobs by Occupation, Occupation Report)
3. See which regional industries employ the most workers in STEM (Economic Forecaster > Occupation tool > Inverse Staffing Patterns)
4. Create maps using occupational data (EMSI GIS).

Here’s an example of chemical engineering jobs in California:

This is just a quick introduction to some of the capabilities of Strategic Advantage. To learn more, current users are encouraged to browse the online help within the tool, or take advantage of EMSI’s free, unlimited Customer Solutions support service. Prospective users can browse our main site for more information or tour videos.

For either Sales or Customer Solutions, feel free to call EMSI at (866) 999-3674 (8am to 5pm Pacific).

Pennsylvania is doing great things with a demand-driven workforce system that connects economic development and industry-led initiatives with workforce training programs. Part of their planning strategy is to allocate more funding to occupations they have identified as “high-priority” using a sophisticated data-driven methodology.

Workforce3One has posted an overview of the state’s methodology (free registration required).

The basic steps are to start with industry clusters that important to the state and its local areas, identify occupations within those clusters, and then filter the resulting occupations for strong growth potential and high wages (must be “family-sustaining”). Finally, local knowledge and regional factors are taken into account to ensure that the high-level data and projections have not overlooked anything (for example, the impending arrival of a new, large employer, which would not yet show up in the state’s labor market data.)

This rigorous process is not only industry-oriented but also increases the likelihood that state and federal money spent on training will see a return on investment. Training workers for high-demand, high-wage occupations will result of higher worker incomes and subsequently fewer demands on public services.

Because individual businesses and entire industries are connected in a complex web of interdependent relationships, regional planners can never afford to make decisions based solely on changes affecting a single employer or industry sector. Any changes in one will have very real ripple effects not only on suppliers but also indirectly on local businesses that depend on the spending of affected employees. How will these indirect effects be addressed by the region’s government agencies, economic development council, workforce board, and community college?

Download the full document (PDF): Practical Input-Output Modeling

Every region must periodically assess its most important industries in order to ensure that policy priorities are aligned with the realities and needs of the region’s economy. However, determining which regional industries are important can be challenging, since the definition of “important” is not always agreed upon by regional stakeholders. To avoid resorting to multiple surveys or word-of-mouth evidence, hard data is a necessary component of this planning process. Quantitative methods are also much faster and cheaper than qualitative methods, and also less prone to be affected by political pressures.

Read the full document (PDF): Identifying Important Regional Industries

“Rapid response” refers to action by regional, state, or federal agencies to provide comprehensive re-employment services to workers who are about to be laid off by large employer cutbacks or closings. By identifying local employment and/or economic development opportunities, relevant agencies can reduce the impact of the job losses on the workers and the community as a whole.

Read the full document (PDF): Using Data to Support Rapid Response

This best practice document provides an overview of conducting a socioeconomic impact analysis of community and technical colleges.

Excerpt:

Community colleges play a substantial role in the economic development of their service regions, not only through their own daily operations, but also through the added skills that they provide to their students. The benefits of community colleges are many, making them a valuable resource to all education stakeholders – students, taxpayers, as well as businesses. Measuring these benefits in quantitative terms, however, can be a challenge, and, in the vast majority of cases, the advantages of community colleges are often treated anecdotally or even overlooked. Many surveys indicate that citizens are more likely to act in support of community colleges once they are informed of the benefits they generate, which is why it is important for colleges to be able to measure, using hard data, their significant contributions to the community.

Download the full document (PDF): Socioeconomic Impact Analysis: Measuring the Role of Your College in its State and Local Economy.

A new resource guide published by the State Science and Technology Institute for the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration highlights three elements essential to the formation of a tech-based economy: intellectual infrastructure, capital, and entrepreneurial culture.

The document is intended for economic development practitioners working with regions to transition to technology based economies.

The University of Minnesota has compiled ten principles of economic development through their State and Local Policy Program. Their introduction states,

“Economic Development is a concept whose definition often depends on who is doing the talking. Economists, elected officials, development professionals and citizens are all likely to have varying perspectives on the subject.

The basic framework begins with the assumption that the object of development is to create wealth, whether on a national, regional or local level. However, it is here that the many perspectives diverge. As a backgrounder, the SLPP presents ‘Ten Principles in Economic Development’.”