Since the early 2000s, there’s been a spike in health care degrees, large dips in computers and engineering technology, and slowdown in the education field. These are some of the trends we noticed after analyzing data on a selected group of programs from the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES).

The completion numbers also showed the key role community colleges play in educating the workforce. From 2003-2009, 59% of new graduates and 49% of total graduates in the programs we selected (*see below for more) came at the certificate and associate’s degrees levels. Of course, four-year schools often offer certificate programs and two-year degrees, but CCs are the main providers of these degrees.

The Data

Before we get into the trends, here’s a table that shows national completions from ’03-09 using two-digit CIP codes. This includes degrees at the certificate, associate’s, and bachelor’s level.

One note on the percentage of new grads at the one- and two-year level category: If the percentage is above 100% — like it is for education and engineering technologies — that means there was decline from ’03-09 at the bachelor’s degree level. If there’s a negative percentage — as it is for agriculture operations — that means there was a decline at the certificate and bachelor’s degree level and growth at the bachelor’s level.

*There were approximately 15 programs we excluded from this analysis. Most posted very low numbers of graduates at the certificate and associate’s level.

Health Care Boom

The popularity of health care programs exploded in the 2000s. At the certificate and associate’s levels, health professions and related clinical sciences had the greatest growth among completers. At the bachelor’s level, health professions come in second place — behind business management marketing and related support services.

Though the health care industry has been in severe need of graduates over the past decade, the demand for workers is not infinite. A rough estimation of supply vs. demand reveals that between the 2003-2009 academic years, there were nearly 3.7 million completers in health care-related programs, compared to an estimated demand of 2.79 million new and replacement jobs. And given what we know about the health care industry and its seemingly unquenchable need for more workers — this seems like a odd figure.* As a result, actually determining the real gaps and surpluses in the educational industry is a complicated process and not as simple as finding the difference between these two numbers.

*Turnover in health care occupations may be greater than anticipated, which might partly explain the large need for workers despite the labor market numbers.

Computers and Information Bust

No educational field experienced more decline in graduates from ’03-09 than computer and information sciences and support services. All told, the number of graduates dipped by over 53,000 between 2003-2009 — a decrease of more than 8,000 graduates per year. This change could be attributed to Americans’ increased competency with computers, or to the residual effects of the tech bubble bursting in 2000-2001.

There have been some signs of health, however, in computers and information. In 2009, there was a net increase in the number of graduates compared to ’08 for the first time over the time frame of the study. Wary students seem to have overreacted to the signs of decline because unlike the healthcare field, computers and technology industries could stand to benefit from an increase in graduates. There was a estimated shortage of over 147,000 workers nationally from ’03-09.

Shifting Career Paths in Education

Typically education is one of the most popular programs, with an average of over 129,000 students completing programs each year. But unlike some of the other popular programs, education may be losing ground.

Among the top five most popular programs in 2009, all except education experienced at least 16% growth in graduation figures between ’03-09. Education increased by just 2% over this time period. This shift seems to be largely occurring at the bachelor’s degree level; between ’03-07, the number of bachelor’s level graduates in education decreased by over 3,000 at the national level.

On the other hand, more and more students are pursuing education as a program at the certificate and associate’s degree level (almost 5,000 more graduates in 2009 compared to 2003). Bachelor’s level education still dominates the field in terms of training paths toward a career in education— over 80% of the country’s graduates in this field received a bachelor’s degree in 2009.

This data suggests that community college is becoming a more viable option for students who are interested in the education profession.

If you’d like more information on completers and labor market data for your region, please email Josh Wright (jwright@economicmodeling.com).

Specifically, the study done by Demos reports that 31% of associate-degree holders — in high-skilled fields like health care and engineering — earn more than someone holding a bachelor degree. Along the same lines, 43% of certificate holders make more than those with an associate degree.

Community College Times recently wrote this article on the new study, and we decided to weigh in using our national occupational and earnings data as a gauge. The analysis includes three education levels: vocational award, associate degree, and bachelor degree.

Using a tool we designed to look at local employment, we filtered for the various earnings levels and education categories. Included below is a look at national county-level data for the fourth quarter of 2009.

VOCATIONAL AWARD

For this category, we sorted by occupations with median hourly earnings of at least $20. Notice that five of these jobs are in the installation, maintenance, and repair field. The most promising occupation in terms of growth and wages is electrical repairers, powerhouse, substation, and relay.

ASSOCIATE DEGREE

For this category, we found all occupations where the average education level is an associate degree and median earnings are at least $25 per hour. Nine of the 11 occupations that fit those criteria are in health care and engineering — just as the Demos study pointed out.

BACHELOR DEGREE

For this category, we looked at all bachelor-level occupations for only two fields — engineering and health care. We then included only those that make at least $25 per hour to make for a better comparison of the associate-level occupations above.

A COMPARISON

While this isn’t a direct comparison by any means, the average earnings at the bachelor level for health care and engineering occupations ($35.72) is higher than at the associate level. But in certain two-year health care occupations (dental hygienists, radiation therapists), the earnings are better than in some four-year health care occupations.

For engineering occupations, meanwhile, the data suggests that a bachelor degree means more — in some cases much more — in terms of median salary.

If you’d like to see an earnings comparison for your region, please email Josh Wright or call 208.883.3500.

Mandel’s thoughts sparked us to take a look at EMSI’s educational attainment data, and see what trends we noticed. Using our GIS tool, we created this map showing the highest concentration (or location quotient) of degree-holders. We included associate, bachelor, and graduate and higher degrees.

Now here are the top 15 US counties with the highest concentration of degree-holders. No. 1 on the list, Falls Church, Virginia, has an LQ of 2.23 — meaning it’s more than twice as concentrated as the nation in the number of residents with associate, bachelor, and graduate and higher degrees.

Virginia isn’t the only state that figures prominently in this ranking. Colorado and Maryland also appear multiple times. Just outside the top 15 is Boulder, Colo., with an LQ of 1.80.

If you would like to see these data mapped for your region, please email Josh Wright.

Directions/Tips:

• It will be most interesting if you switch from the bubble graph to the bar graph — see the tabs at the top right-hand corner of the chart.
• To start, click the box for the “nation” on the right-hand side for a good frame of reference.
• Now, just click the states you want to see and hit play to see how they change over time.

1969-2008 State Annual Personal Income, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis

Here are a few basic observations:

• Perhaps the most noticeable trend is the dramatic increase in personal income in Washington DC. The nation’s capital began to rise above all other states in the early part of this decade. By 2008, the last year for our data, DC’s per capita income ($66,119) is nearly $10,000 more than the second state on the list, Connecticut ($56,272).
• When the Rust Belt states (e.g., Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, etc.) are isolated, there’s a somewhat steep decline in income compared to the nation.
• Alaska is an interesting state to follow. By the mid-1970s, it dwarfed all other states in terms of earnings (as high as almost $46,000 in 1976). But it has since fallen to No. 9 on the list.
• Half of the bottom 10 states on this list are in the South. Mississippi is ranked last with 2008 personal income at $30,399.

Here are some key data points from the Roscoe wind project:

• There are 627 turbines in operation that generate enough power for 230,000 homes.
• At the height of construction, 600 people were employed. Now 10 permanent staffers are on board and roughly 60 contractors perform maintenance on the turbines.
• There is also a wind energy service center in the region that employs 120 technicians — former utility workers, mechanics, etc. — that monitor and service the turbines.
• Wages for the green jobs, according to one estimate, are $50,000 per year at the base level. That’s a fairly robust figure for a county with average annual earnings of under $35,000, according to the latest EMSI dataset (3rd quarter, 2009).

From all accounts, the wind farm has been a boon to the rural area. Indeed, these types of green projects can be ideal for rural development — in certain cases, of course — because of the availability of plenty of land and wind. Here’s an excerpt from the article that hammers home that point:

Greg Wortham, the mayor of Sweetwater–the county seat and economic hub–said wind-power development in the region could serve as a model for the revilatization of rural America, if the windy Great Plains are linked to the populated and power-hungry East and West Coasts. Already local businesses and construction crews that cut their teeth in the vicinity’s pioneering wind farms are testing their mettle in emerging wind economies like Iowa. …

“This is the microcosm of what’s going to happen,” Wortham says.

It’s become especially hard to find accountants, health care workers, software sales representatives, actuaries, data analysts, physical therapists and electrical engineers, labor analysts say. And employers that demand highly specialized training—like biotech firms that need plant scientists or energy companies that need geotechnical engineers to build offshore platforms—struggle even more to fill jobs.

The trend has been intensified by the speed of the job market decline, Koropeckyj said. The nation has lost a net 7.6 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Yet it can take a year or more for a laid-off worker to gain the training and education to switch industries. That means health care jobs are going unfilled even as laid-off workers in the auto, construction or financial services industries seek work.

We thought we’d take a look at growth, earnings, and education-level data of the occupations mentioned and the industries that staff them to show some national trends in the last four years. The following figures come from EMSI’s third quarter 2009 data, released in late September.

Click on table for larger image

It’s not hard to see why most of these occupations would be hard to fill. All but two of them — Sales reps and Registered Nurses — require at least a bachelor’s degree.

From 2006 to 2009, the fastest-growing occupation in this group was Physical therapists, which also requires the most education of the bunch — a master’s degree on average. Once new and replacement jobs are added to the equation, the biggest percentage growth comes from Network systems/data communications analysts (16%), followed by Actuaries and Soil and plant scientists (15%).

Industry Staffing Patterns

Now let’s look at the top industries that staff some of these occupations. We’ll start with Network systems/data communications analysts.

The industrial makeup for this occupation shows what you expect to see — computer programming and telecommunication industries. But state and local government also are represented here; in fact, local government is showing the fastest growth (16%) along with managing offices.

Also notice the precipitous drop-off in internet service providers, an industry that’s lost 40% of its employment since 2006.

Next, let’s look at the top industries for Accountants and auditors.

Various forms of government show up for Accountants and auditors, just as they did for Network systems/data communications analysts. Other accounting services has seen decline, but most of these industries are holding steady or growing by small margins.

If you’d like to see how these occupations and industries are faring in your region, please contact us.

We’ve chosen a 30-mile radius around a particular ZIP code for each city.

NEW YORK CITY (Lower Manhattan):

The top three occupations (Computer specialists, Registered nurses, Sales Managers) will become a prevalent theme here. It’s interesting for this part of NYC, however, that Computer specialists has more than double the postings of any other occupation — and even more than Registered nurses and Sales managers combined.

CHICAGO:

This time, the top three are the same, but Sales Managers is No. 2 in this part of Chicago. It’s also interesting that all 10 occupations between NYC and Chicago are the same; they are just ordered differently.

LOS ANGELES:

One occupation that makes the top 10 in just L.A. is Computer software engineers, system software. IT-related jobs, in fact, are scattered throughout these lists.

For more information about job listings in your area, please contact us.

A relatively straightforward way to get at “the story” for a region is through shift share. Shift share is a traditional analysis method for determining how much of regional job growth is attributable to national trends versus local trends. Shift share helps answer the question: “Why is industry X growing (or declining) in our region?”

Now shift share can be difficult to grasp and conduct. However, outfitted with some actual data, and some clever animation, shift share comes alive and provides a glimpse of local trends not available from simple examination of the data alone. To illustrate, we took some of our employment data and loaded it into a Google Docs spreadsheet so you can see how it works and why it’s so useful.

First, let us start with the bubble chart we put together for an analysis we conducted for the Washington DC metro area. The two directions we want to pay attention to are “upward and right” (which indicates a sector is becoming more competitive regionally and nationally) and “downward and right” (indicating a sector becoming less competitive nationally but more competitive regionally).

Mouse over the different bubbles to see how some are becoming more competitive while others are becoming less competitive. What are some of your initial observations?

Note: A bug on Google’s end requires that you be signed into a Google account to view the bubble chart. However, the chart in its most basic form can be seen here. Under “Color,” add “Unique colors,” and remember that the vertical axis should be “mix” and the horizontal axis should be “shift.”

How to read the chart

The chart is built on historical and projected 2-digit industry data from 2007-2012.

•    The X-axis: Industrial Mix Effect — shows the share of growth explained by growth of the sector at the national level.  Movement to the right indicates sectors that are becoming more important in the national economy.
•    The Y-axis: Regional Competitive Effect — shows the share of growth explained by growth beyond the national level of growth.  It captures growth reflecting an increased competitive advantage of the sector in region.

DC: A Tale of Two Sectors

Like other metro areas, Washington DC’s economy has changed a lot during the recession. But how has DC’s change differed from other metros? While unemployment in other major MSAs has ballooned, at 6.2% the DC metro area has the second-lowest unemployment rate among major cities. It’s also home to an increasingly larger segment of young, wealthy workers.

With this in mind we can try to discern which sectors are the competitive forces behind this growth. We can also see the sectors that lag behind. The industry sectors of greatest note are Government and Professional and technical services. They employ the most, and both are experiencing some impressive trends.

1. Government — includes federal, state, and city government and has shown considerable growth in the city. However, the growth in the Government sector nationally is actually outpacing the growth in Government in DC. Is that something you knew?
2. Professional and technical services — includes consulting firms, contractors, etc. and has been the true star of the DC economy and is projected to remain very competitive. The sector grew 24% from 2002 to 2009 in Washington, and when you include shift share figures, it’s clear that it is outperforming the sector on the national level. A lot of this has to do with the fact that these consulting firms and contractors are capturing government spending.

What other trends can you see?

Putting shift share analysis together:

•    First, keep in mind that shift share analysis can be applied to almost any labor market characteristic. This means with shift share we can look at industry clusters (e.g., Biotech), a specific industry sector (e.g., manufacturing), occupation clusters (e.g., “green” construction jobs), and specific occupations (e.g., Welder).

•    To do this shift share makes regional change a function of three related factors:

1. Growth or decline of the national economy,
2. The growth or decline of the particular industry sector or occupation, and
3. The regional change for that industry sector or occupation.

•    Once we have these numbers we can begin to understand if the growth or decline in the region (the share) has more to do with what’s happening regionally, or if it’s more dependent on national changes (the shift).

For more information, or to perform this analysis for your area, please contact us.

Pull factor is simple to calculate, and it can be done using EMSI’s labor market tools.

Here’s a quick example:

Ada County, Idaho, is home to Boise, a medium-sized city that has seen substantial population growth in recent years. As a result, it’s a central retail hub for a large area of southwestern Idaho.

Step one: To measure Ada County’s pull factor, we first gather the 2009 total sales figure for the retail trade industry in the Economic Impact tool. It can be found under the “Economic Base” tab and the “Jobs, Earnings, Sales” report. For Ada county — about $2 billion.

Step two: Calculate the per capita sales by dividing the overall sales amount ($2 billion) by the county’s population (391,589), which can be found in Economic Forecaster. This leaves us with a per capita sales figure of approximately $5,164.

Step three: Repeat the same process, only this time use state-level numbers. Total retail sales for Idaho is estimated to be roughly $6.5 billion in 2009 and the total population is 1,553,491. The per capita sales figure is $4,200.

Step four: Divide Ada County’s per capita sales ($5,164) by the state’s ($4,200).

Results: Ada County has a pull factor of 1.23 ($5,164/$4,200 = 1.23). This means that the county brings in 23% more sales (in dollars) than the average area. This is a very healthy number, especially in comparison to Idaho’s second largest county, Canyon, which has a pull factor of 0.69.

Pull factor can be particularly useful when trying to see how a community has grown and developed over a series of years.

For more on pull factor analysis, contact Dave Williams or Mark Beauchamp in EMSI’s Customer Solutions department at 866-999-3674.

In the case of the northwestern states, the reason they got picked is because of their high concentration of high-tech companies, Moody’s economist Andrew Gledhill said. Analysts expect a pick-up in tech spending as the recession gets going.

“[W]e feel that pent-up demand for high-tech equipment that has been furthered in part by the financial crisis could benefit states with these kinds of links,” Gledhill said.

Here at EMSI, we decided to take a look at short-term projections from our latest dataset (released in June) for the five states mentioned to see what the numbers indicate. Below is national county-level industry data for each state at the 2-digit NAICS level.

Click on the tables for a bigger image

Some observations:

• The states that fare best in terms of total growth are Idaho and Colorado. Both are projected to see 4% job expansion through 2010 — that’s twice what’s projected for the national growth rate for this time period.
• Two industries with minimal or negative growth across the board are Utilities and Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting. Colorado is the only state where the latter is projected to grow, albeit at a meager 1% clip.
• One sector that looks to see some nice growth is Administrative and waste services — which includes many so-called middle-skill occupations.