Posts Tagged ‘private sector jobs’

Vespa. The new S. Born to be square.
Richard Florida
by Richard Florida
Sun Aug 9th 2009 at 5:50pm EDT

The Big Restructure

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

It’s more than a jobless recovery, we’ve been looking at a jobless decade or more, at least in terms of private sector jobs, according to Business Week’s chief economist, Michael Mandel.

Beneath this trend lies a broad and fundamental restructuring of the U.S., and virtually every other advanced economy – the decline of manufacturing and the rise of professional, knowledge-based, and creative work on the one hand, and lower-end service work on the other. This chart (via the New York Time’s Floyd Norris) depicts the shift.

restructure.gif
Norris explains:

The total picture is of an economy that has changed in substantial ways over the decade. After the recession ends, job growth is likely to resume. But there is no indication that the secular trend toward a more service-oriented economy will reverse. A decade from now, there are likely to be still more jobs at architecture and engineering firms (up 1.2 percent a year over the last decade) and at bars and restaurants (up 1.8 percent a year). But few expect that manufacturing will reverse its long decline as a major employer in the United States.

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Posted in The Atlantic, Work | 6 Comments »

Richard Florida
by Richard Florida
Fri Apr 10th 2009 at 10:13am EDT

Job Sprawl

Friday, April 10th, 2009

A newly released Brookings report “revisits” an earlier 2001 study of “job sprawl” across 98 of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas. The study finds that private sector jobs continued to decentralize in the late 1990s and 2000s.

  • About a fifth (21 percent) of workers work within three miles of downtown, while nearly half (45 percent) work more than 10 miles outside the center.
  • The larger the metro area, the more likely people are to work more than 10 miles away from downtown.
  • 95 of 98 metro areas saw a decrease in the share of jobs located within three miles of downtown.
  • The outer-suburbs of these metros saw job growth of 17 percent compared to less than one percent growth in the urban core.
  • Job location varies considerably by industry. More than 30 percent of jobs in utilities, finance, and insurance, and educational services industries are located withing three miles of the urban core, while  at least half of the jobs in manufacturing, construction, and retail are located more than 10 miles outside it.
  • Overall, 17 of 18 industries studied saw employment decentralization, led by transportation and warehousing, finance and insurance, utilities, and real estate and rental and leasing.

I’m not so sure this stretched out spatial pattern bodes well for long-run U.S. economic prosperity or environmental sustainability. Your thoughts?

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Posted in By The Numbers | 16 Comments »