The Brookings Institution recently released the 2024 Metro Monitor, an easy-to-use tool to look at how regional economies have been performing over the last decade in five broad categories.
Overall, the Louisville region’s performance was modest, ranking primarily in the middle of the 54 largest metro areas on measures of growth, prosperity, racial inclusion, and geographic inclusion. The region did score relatively high, 5th among metro areas, on measures of overall inclusion.
Access to talent is an important factor in business location decisions, which in turn affects the region’s economic growth. It is important to understand the educational attainment of the population across the entire region, since workers and employers are located throughout the metropolitan area.
Last year, 17,500 of the Louisville region’s youth and young adults were not enrolled in school and not working. Youth disconnection is both serious and costly for young people and society itself. The Spot: Young Adult Opportunity Center works directly with the region’s opportunity youth.
The manufacturing sector is the second largest sector in the Louisville region’s economy, and holds a special place in the history of the region’s development. Learn more about the current state of the manufacturing industry in this spotlight.
Jobs in information technology are one of the region’s fastest growing jobs, driven by the continued integration of advanced technology and machinery into workflows. Learn more about the information technology jobs in the Kentuckiana region in this spotlight.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in May 2022 the Louisville region’s median hourly wage was $21.33 per hour, or $44,360 per year. More than half of the region’s workforce is earning a living wage for a single adult with no children. But the region’s median wage is still short of the family-supporting wage for a family of four with two working adults.
As local employers continue to search for workers to fill their open positions, some have expanded efforts to reach under-utilized labor. The region’s immigrants and refugees are a critical part of the workforce, but they are more likely to be underemployed than US-born workers. Strategies to address this untapped talent can improve economic outcomes for employers, workers, and the overall region.
The Occupational Outlook for the Kentuckiana Region presents details on local job needs over the next ten years, organized by career cluster. Consideration for future job demand leads to better alignment of students and career changers with high demand, high wage jobs, and creates a larger pool of qualified candidates for employers.
The size of the region’s population and changing demographic patterns are important metrics for the local economy. The overall size of the region’s workforce and its demographic makeup are driven by the patterns across the total population.
As the costs of basic needs have skyrocketed during this period of rapid inflation, it is worth revisiting the impact of cliff effects on workers in low-wage jobs. The Kentucky Center for Statistics has revamped its Family Resource Simulator, making it easier to use and ensuring it will stay updated and relevant in a changing economy.
Setting goals for quality and equity are important, but benchmarking and measuring progress is just as crucial. The data will tell the story over time.
Given the current demand for workers, it is worth highlighting the importance of immigrants to the labor supply within the Louisville region.
The latest occupation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that some of the region’s most common occupations do not provide a living wage. Compared to other metro areas, Louisville has lower overall wages, even after adjusting for the cost of living.
Research shows that mothers of young children accounted for nearly a quarter of the unanticipated employment loss related to COVID-19. Access to affordable, reliable child care was a challenge before the pandemic, and has only gotten worse since. The low-wage-work/high-cost-service conundrum of the child care sector has led the Treasury Department to deem the industry a market failure. This implies a need for public sector support, and given the impact to businesses in need of a labor supply, also suggests a role for employers to step in.
Given the tight labor market we are currently experiencing, the labor force participation rate is receiving a lot of attention. Recently, Kentucky legislators have made changes to the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) benefit program to address the low labor force participation in the state. However, changes to UI eligibility is unlikely to have any significant change on the state’s labor force participation rate. Policies targeting child care and economic opportunity for individuals with a disability and older workers are the main instruments for improving the state’s labor force participation rate.
Like the rest of the nation, the Louisville region is experiencing a very tight labor market. The unemployment rate is near record lows, and average wages are increasing. But with inflation on the rise, workers are not feeling the full benefits of wage increases. In this rare shift toward worker power, employees are able to voluntarily leave their current position and seek out new and better working conditions.
As supplemental pandemic unemployment insurance benefits end this Labor Day, thousands of Kentuckians will lose access to UI benefits. Research that compares economic outcomes for states that withdrew early from the program reveals the impacts we can expect in the Commonwealth and across the US.
The construction sector is among the Louisville region’s 10 largest industries, and critical to building and maintaining homes, roads, and other structures. In this post, we take a look at the construction industry overall, how it has fared during the pandemic recession, and what kinds of jobs are in demand.
Many local employers are finally looking to increase their staffing levels, and young adults are a key labor supply. While employment rates for young people are increasing, persistent inequities exist in the labor market. SummerWorks is a summer youth employment program that seeks to help address these disparities by helping Louisville Metro’s youth connect with a summer job experience.
There were more than 30,000 individuals out of work but actively seeking work within the Louisville region in March. Even so, we are hearing from employers that they are unable to fill open positions and are scrambling to find workers. What is causing the disconnect between the unemployed and available job openings?
The economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic has reverberated throughout the world. The Louisville region’s economy has also suffered as people and businesses reacted to the public health crisis.
In this post, we review the data from throughout 2020 to see the economic impact in the local economy. The recovery since the depths of the pandemic has been uneven across sectors and unequal for different workers.
Research suggests that the rate of automation is accelerating during the COVID-19 pandemic. Why? Which local sectors were already investing the most in advanced technologies? And importantly, what skills will workers need to succeed in a more automated post-COVID economy? Find out in our latest article.
Workers in low-wage jobs often do not earn enough to make ends meet. As a result, many workers in low-wage jobs rely on work supports to help them cover the costs of living, such as food, stable housing, healthcare, and childcare. Low-wage workers face trade-offs as they pursue career advancement, because earning more in income can mean losing access to work supports. A new tool shows the net result workers face when they earn more but become ineligible for public assistance programs in the process. These cliff effects might prevent workers in low-wage jobs from taking advantage of career advancement because of a very rational decision- they would ultimately have fewer resources to provide for their family.
The unemployment rate is an important metric for tracking the health of the labor market. It is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on a monthly basis.
The unemployment rate for June was recently released, and seems to be showing signs that the local economy is improving. But a closer look at the data reveals that the economic fallout of the pandemic is still in motion.
Economic conditions in the United States have changed at an unprecedented rate in the last 90 days due to the COVID-19 pandemic, going from record-low unemployment rates to record-highs in just a few months. The closure of non-essential businesses and dramatic declines in consumer spending have left millions of workers jobless. New data released Wednesday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics sheds light on how the Louisville metropolitan region’s economy has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. The data reveals the local economic conditions in mid-April, at the height of the pandemic.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there are many people who continue to go to work each day to keep us all safe and fed. Workers in the frontline industries responding to the pandemic are critically important to getting our community through these uncertain times. In this post, we take a look at the characteristics of the workers who are helping to keep buildings clean, provide access to the goods we all need, and caring for the sick and vulnerable.
On February 25, 2020 over 1,000 employers, policy-makers, community leaders, tech enthusiasts, and curious citizens gathered at Tomorrow’s Talent, the region’s fifth annual workforce and education summit, to focus on how artificial intelligence (AI) will shape the Louisville region’s workforce and talent pipeline.
At the beginning of each decade the federal government counts every person living in the United States. The 2020 Census is a critical operation that will have lasting impacts over the next 10 years. Among other important reasons, the results of the 2020 Census will impact future allocations of the primary funding stream for KentuckianaWorks.
The Louisville area has a demand for construction workers as new buildings, roads, and other structures are needed to keep pace with the region’s growth. Check out five growing construction jobs that don’t require a college degree.