Month: August 2014

Texas Nurses, Therapists, and Physician Assistants See Increase in both Job Openings and Searchers per Job Opening from April 2014 to May 2014

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The number of job openings and searcher-to-job opening ratio in Texas for nurses, therapists, and physician assistants increased from 9,292 and 0.95, respectively, in April 2014 to 9,612 and 1.09, respectively, in May 2014.

Image Source: http://www.carrollhs.org/s/1253/index.aspx?pgid=877

Moretti’s economic tale of two cites: where Microsoft is now and Albuquerque

In Moretti’s book, he provides a detail study of how innovation jobs can be economic driver and dictate the economic future of a town, city or region.
Moretti discusses where Microsoft (MSFT) is now , Seattle, and Albuquerque, NM.  These two cities embody the natural experiment that he suggest shows the impact of innovation jobs.  In short he shows how one town has grown and blossomed and the other has not.
 He points to three factors that have lead to the drastic divergence.
1 Job Creation.  The sheer number of innovation jobs created by Microsoft both directly and the tradition jobs that were created indirectly.
2. The MSFT millionaires. These millionairies changed the landscape of Seattle as they started their own companies in around the city (and the industry).
3. The Hubs.  According to Moretti cities like Seattle have become ‘Hubs’ that attract other businesses.  Many businesses find that the existence of other companies both in their industry (competitors) and related companies attracts other companies and makes it easier for them to do business

What’s the latest on the economic impact of outsourcing?

downloadOutsourcing 
According to Moretti, economic studies have generally found that outsourcing is a net good for the U.S. economy.
According to Moretti, many of the outsourced services are complements and not substitutes for the services that we use locally in the U.S.
In addition to citing several economic studies on the topic, Moretti uses the case study of Oracle.  According to Moretti, In 2000 Oracle had 22,008 U.S. workers and 20,919 workers abroad. In 2014, as the company grew the number of jobs outsourced also grew.. By 2014, Oracle had 40,000 in the U.S. and 60,000 abroad.
According to Moretti, this was a net gain for the U.S. even though clearly outsourcing has increased for Oracle.   Many of the U.S. jobs created by Oracle jobs are high paying jobs.  Also, he further shoes that many of the jobs, like routine computer software programmers, were jobs that helped U.S. workers do their jobs better as opposed to replacing the work of native U.S. workers. Further the multiplier effect resulted in many support jobs being created in the U.S.

Why is the innovation job sector so important? Because 5 > 1.6 (Moretti)

Why it is import?
Moretti argues that innovation jobs, like software jobs, make intensive use of human capital and human ingenuity are big economic drivers.
Based on his calculations from 320 Metro areas and approximately 11 million employee and previous studies, Moretti estimates that one innovation job creates five supporting jobs.
In contrast, Moretti estimates that traditional jobs create about 1.6 for every job. This is based on 320 metro areas and 11 million employees.

What is the innovation sector? Thoughts on Moretti’s book ‘The New Geography of Jobs’

Enrico Moretti’s book “‘The New Geography of Jobs” discusses how certain jobs, which he refers to innovation jobs, and where they are located are important factors for economic development.  Using data and economic research as support, he provides numerous arguments that suggest that these types of jobs are big economic drivers and dictate the economic fate of many communities.

So what are innovation jobs?  Moretti defines innovation jobs as jobs that make intensive use of human capital and human ingenuity. These jobs includes the obvious like high tech software jobs but also less obvious like jobs in the movie industry that make use of high tech and personal creativity.

Throughout the book Moretti argues that the typical innovation job is worth more substantially more than traditional jobs. That is one reason why he believes we should not be concerned about the loss in the traditional types of jobs.

Job Openings in Texas for Petroleum Engineers, Technicians, and Personnel Decreased from April 2014 to May 2014

petroleum engineerThe number of job openings in Texas for “petroleum engineers” and “geological and petroleum technicians” decreased from 672 in April 2014 to 640 in May 2014, while the searcher-to-job opening ratio increased from 0.74 to 0.90 in the same span.

The number of job openings in Texas for “derrick operators” and “roustabouts” decreased from 294 in April 2014 to 283 in May 2014, while the searcher-to-job opening ratio increased from 2.54 to 2.63 in the same span.

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Image source: http://wonderfulengineering.com/what-is-petroleum-engineering/.