October 31st, 2008
Robert Shore
Economic Research Program Manager
Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism
Completing shift share and location quotient breakdowns for every industry in a state, even when that state is Hawaii, can be an overwhelming task. But with EMSI’s analysis, Robert Shore and his staff at the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism have found it to be a manageable endeavor. Shore’s Regional Analysis and Performance branch hopes to better identify Hawaii’s growing, emerging, transitioning, and declining industries by looking at regional competitiveness and relative concentration. The state-commissioned staff can do all this inside EMSI’s tool, which allows users to get a broad overview (two-digit NAICS codes) or a detailed look (six-digit codes). Another goal in the report is to focus on emerging industries not related to tourism, a large part of the Hawaiian economy that is starting to suffer a downturn after years of robust growth. The early results point to small but emerging sectors tied to research and development and custom computer programming.
October 31st, 2008
Hart Hodges
Director, Center of Economic and Business Research
Western Washington University
Bellingham, Washington
To give policymakers, economic/workforce development professionals, and educators a better sense of how northwestern Washington industries are performing, the Center of Economic and Business Research (CEBR) releases sector profiles. The four-county reports have been facilitated by EMSI’s labor market analysis. Hart Hodges, director of the CEBR, says the profiles “paint a picture” of sectors ranging from manufacturing to health care to agriculture. In the past, the CEBR relied solely on data from Washington State’s Employment Security Department. He now has access to key figures for industries and occupations, such as location quotients (a measure of concentration) in easy to use, report-ready graphical format. Hodges also hopes to do similar reports focusing on workforce demographic profiles for even more Washington counties. Once again, EMSI’s analysis will be at the heart of the project, he says.
October 31st, 2008
Pat Fera
Manager
Will County (Ill.) Workforce Investment Board
EMSI’s analysis tool, Strategic Advantage, helps Pat Fera maximize her time and resources. As a workforce investment board (WIB) manager, Fera receives data requests from area employers who are looking for workforce and wage information. Fera says, “SA’s value is both internal and external. Internally, we use the data to get a heads up of changes in the economy and to plan accordingly. Externally, we value the flexibility of the data for business services and business recruitment.” Recently, Fera was able to use EMSI to support business recruitment. She used wage information from SA to show the prospective employer that contrary to their concerns, Will County’s wage scale is competitive with the surrounding regions. From this very specific analysis to an economic overview of the entire region, Strategic Advantage is a key component to this workforce investment board’s success.
October 31st, 2008
Melanie Moore
Director of Research
Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce
Florida
Melanie Moore is currently using EMSI’s analysis to perform a data-focused report of how Jacksonville compares to its 17 biggest competitors in recruiting targeted industries. The study will allow Moore to show how Jacksonville stacks up to a wide range of cities in terms of employment numbers and projected growth in particular industries. For example, Jacksonville competes with New York and Boston in the financial services sector, while its chief competitors in transportation are Savannah, Georgia and Mobile, Alabama. Transportation is a key industry for Jacksonville because two major interstates intersect there. Moore also appreciates EMSI’s tool when she compiles information for prospective businesses, particularly when she needs to glean data for all ZIP codes within a 30- or 40-mile radius around the city. “It’s so nice to be able slice and dice the data however you need it, and do it quickly and easily,” she says.
October 31st, 2008
Bill Berry
Research Coordinator
Central Pennsylvania Workforce Development Corporation
When Bill Berry needs to crunch labor market numbers, he turns to EMSI’s web-based analysis tool. As a research coordinator who collaborates with workforce development professionals across Pennsylvania, Berry has to dig in and analyze industry and occupation data on a regular basis. He enjoys the ease of selecting different regions in EMSI’s tool with a few mouse clicks. The ability to combine counties from different states is also a plus. He and his coworkers at the Central Pennsylvania Workforce Development Corporation recently helped a workforce investment board in Pennsylvania that needed data for a report on three counties in Ohio (Mahoning, Columbiana, and Trumbull) and two in Pennsylvania (Lawrence and Mercer). The WIB wanted to show how far its potential labor pool extended. “That was a pretty big deal for them,” Berry says. “I think they were impressed with the quality and extent of the data available.”
October 31st, 2008
ACT recently released future workforce profiles for 31 states. The reports are aimed at providing states with information on gaps or surpluses in high-growth occupations that require at least a two-year degree based on students’ interest level. States qualified for the profiles by having 25 percent or more of their 2008 graduates ACT-tested and at least 100 students express an interest in their high-growth fields.
Martin Scaglione, president and chief operating officer of ACT’s Workforce Development Division stated, “Educators, employers, as well as workforce and economic development officials, can gain a more focused perspective on how well the interests of students in the educational pipeline align with the demands of high growth jobs in that state. These profiles help present a view of the employees of tomorrow and how well their interests are aligning with future needs of the workforce.”
Read more about the project and find links to state profiles here.
October 30th, 2008
The global economic downturn is starting to affect higher education in the U.S., specifically when it comes to endowments, Reuters news service reports. Meanwhile tuition is continuing to grow at a rapid clip.
- For the nation’s public universities, which educate three out of four students, state subsidies covered a little over half of their budget costs last year, down from two-thirds in 1998. Tuition has grown to cover more than a third of their budgets, up from one-fifth 15 years ago.
- Tuition, room and board at private four-year schools in 2007-2008 averaged $31,019, up 7 percent from two years ago after adjusting for inflation. The cost of public schools was $16,758 for in-state students, $24,955 for out-of-state students, up 5 percent in the last two years after inflation.
- Federal loan aid for higher education increased 60 percent between 1996 and 2005. Students borrowed $77 billion last year to pay expenses to attend colleges and universities. Two out of three students received grants — discounts on tuition — averaging $9,300 at private schools and $3,600 at public schools.
Read the full article here.
October 27th, 2008
Houston Community College in Texas has unveiled the details of an EMSI impact study that concludes the six-college system has a $4.1 billion impact every year on the local and regional economy.
The study drew upon data taken from HCC, as well as the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources. The $4.1 billion annual economic impact, for example, is based upon estimates of the impact college operations have upon the regional economy, along with money spent by students and the increased earnings of students who have graduated from HCC.
(Chancellor Mary) Spangler’s main message since taking office has been that community colleges matter.
“Community colleges are critical to the economic success of our country,” she said. “Institutions like ours offer hope and access.”
Read the full story here.
October 24th, 2008
With an appealing climate, great local employment opportunities, and a robust agricultural sector, it’s easy to see why the Tri-Cities has been the fastest-growing region in Washington state since 2000.
Located in the southeastern part of the state, Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco (a.k.a the Tri-Cities) have mushroomed nearly 20 percent over the last eight years and boast a current population of 234,000. However, as is always the case with rapid growth, there is one issue: The area’s booming population base has few available avenues to earn four-year degrees without traveling out of the region, thus limiting the ability for many residents to ascend on the career ladder.
As a result, Columbia Basin College offered a solution.
Read the full case study (PDF): Columbia Basin Case Study
October 16th, 2008
The latest round of Community-Based Job Training Grants was announced recently, so EMSI has updated its step-by-step guide to help colleges with their applications. The document shows how Strategic Advantage gives users much of the labor market information that’s required in the solicitation.
Download the PDF: CBJTG guide
Update: EMSI has produced a video tutorial to assist in the CBJTG application process. This brief screencast shows how grants writers can use EMSI’s data analysis to identify high-growth/high-demand industries and occupations in their region, find economic impacts of regional industries, and access occupational competencies.
Watch the CBJTG video tutorial
EMSI is also offering free program justification reports to EMSI clients and other interested education professionals. This report is designed to integrate and analyze data from multiple sources to help educational institutions discover regional labor market needs for certain postsecondary programs of study. The overall goal is to help a college align program offerings to the economy and labor market of its service region. To do this, the report selects a set of focus occupations, determines the regional job outlook for them, and compares this to the number of recent graduates in related programs at regional educational institutions.For more information, contact us at 866.999.3674.
Download the sample report in PDF format
