New Statistical Areas Formed in Central Texas

Regions in Central Texas are getting a makeover courtesy of the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB has recognized Burnet County as having the criteria necessary to form a Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is defined as having at least one urban cluster of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000 population, plus adjacent territory with a high degree of social and economic integration. This new area, called the Marble Falls Micropolitan Statistical Area, but encompassing all of Burnet County, will also result in a new Austin- Round Rock- Marble Falls Combined Statistical Area, allowing data users to analyze the entire six-county region, including the existing five-county Austin metro area and the new Marble Falls area.

OMB now lists 374 metropolitan and 576 micropolitan areas in the US with the only other new region added being Weatherford, OK. These areas are used as a basis to compare regions across the country. Imagine trying to compare Austin and Raleigh based solely on what’s inside the Austin and Raleigh city limits. Both cities have a number of surrounding communities and municipalities providing economic contributions that need to be considered in the analysis. Having these areas defined, makes it a lot easier to gather data to do such a comparison. Now, Marble Falls and Burnet County will be “on the list” of small urban areas that researchers and companies can select for comparison.

The criteria used in forming a statistical area are both population and density. There needs to be at least 10,000 but less than 50,000 people within an urban area to warrant formation of a micropolitan area, and 50,000 or more for a metropolitan area. Boundaries are set using counties as the building blocks, so the smallest that a statistical area could be is one county called the central county. If surrounding counties have sufficient economic ties, at least 25% of the county’s employed residents commuting to the central county, then those counties would also be included in that statistical area.

For Burnet County, qualifying to be its own micropolitan area shows that it is growing and still somewhat independent of the Austin metro region. However, because there are clear ties between the two areas, OMB also formed the Austin-Round Rock-Marble Falls Combined Statistical Area, joining a list of 127 others.

OMB is also renaming the five-county metro region to the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos Metropolitan Statistical Area. For those keeping track, the name prior to 2000 was originally Austin-San Marcos, and later changed to Austin-Round Rock when Round Rock’s population surpassed San Marcos. Because San Marcos has exceeded 50,000, it was again named as a principal city in the statistical area. Despite all the name changing, the boundary is still the same five counties: Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, and Williamson.

With the 2010 Census around the corner, these will likely be the regional statistical areas that are used to release the new data. Only time and commuting patterns will determine if Burnet County remains a separate micropolitan area or if it is eventually added to the metropolitan area.

Chris Ramser

CAPCOG 2009 State of the Region Available Now

We delivered our annual State of the Region presentation today at CAPCOG’s membership meeting. The presentation looked back at our predictions for 2009 and provided some basic information on what’s expected in 2010 in terms of population and job growth in CAPCOG’s counties. Download a PDF copy of the presentation here.

You can also download a copy in the Information Clearinghouse section of the CAPCOG website. Look under Publications and scroll down to State of the Region.

Since we don’t publish a report to go along with the presentation, we’d be glad to schedule a time to visit your community or organization to talk about this information. We’ll accommodate as many requests as we can. Brian Kelsey

2009 State of the Region

We'll be doing our annual State of the Region presentation at our general assembly meeting on Wednesday. We'll post the slides here after the meeting.

Community Visioning

This week we participated in a webinar by the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship focused on a community visioning process they have been working on in two beta communities: Brookfield Missouri and Garden County, Nebraska both of which have been struggling with depopulation over the past couple of decades.

The community visioning process included looking at standard metrics like income, sales, students, tax base, workers, and health care patients. The focus was to look at a possible alternate scenario to the trend and to develop a strategy based on the alternate scenario.

The scenario they came up with was to increase youth attractions by 10% and increase business development by 10%. Both communities showed signs of stabilization or growth in the outward years of the 45 year projections.

Data for these reports were provided by Headwaters Economics, which if you haven't checked out their site, we encourage you to do so. They have some pretty extensive profiles for every county in the country and can even generate aggregate county profiles and profiles for cities using a free piece of software. Check out this tool here.

Chris Ramser

RAISE Texas

Thanks to Don Baylor at the Center for Public Policy Priorities for inviting me to speak at the RAISE Texas summit held earlier this week at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. I don't know much about asset building strategies, so it was a wonderful education opportunity for me. The connection to economic and workforce development is a story that needs telling. I covered a few trends in my presentation that hopefully helped shape the breakout group discussions at the conference, which included demographic information on unemployment insurance claimants during the recession, education requirements for future job growth, and why we all need to be thinking about how to spur innovation in the service sector. You can download a PDF copy of my short presentation here. Brian Kelsey

More on Counting Californians

As Brian talked about in his posting today, the migration interactive map will allow you to view the number that migrated from that county to Travis County during 2007-2008. But for some folks, you may still like to have an old fashioned image. I'm posting links below just in case. Also, there is a state level map showing migration from each state to Travis County.

Map image of Migration to Travis County by county

Map image of Migration to Travis County by state

Chris Ramser

Counting Californians

As one of the fastest growing regions in the US, people here love to talk about growth. Whether it’s the familiar refrain of our region doubling in size over the next 30 years at an ABJ or Envision Central Texas summit or John Kelso at the Statesman welcoming another group of Californians to Austin, growth is a constant topic of discussion. In fact, of the 200 or so data requests we field each year, population information is easily the most popular request.

We got a fresh perspective on growth this week from the IRS’s latest release of migration data for 2007-2008. The IRS uses tax returns to compile data on people moving from county to county around the US and publishes the data on its website each year. Demographers and economists use this data to calculate population estimates, among other things, and we use it to track development trends in our ten-county region. Obviously, the data doesn’t catch people who don’t file taxes, but it’s a good proxy.

As you would expect, the recession and housing crisis put downward pressure on migration in 2007-2008—it’s difficult to pick up and move if you can’t sell your house or find a new job. However, this being the place where population doubles every 30 years, we still saw some gains, especially in Williamson County.

Here is the approximate number of people moving to each county in 2007-2008 with change from the previous year noted in parentheses:

Bastrop 4,880 (-1.3%)
Blanco 641 (11.1%)
Burnet 2,806 (-3.6%)
Caldwell 2,383 (3.2%)
Fayette 1,180 (6.4%)
Hays 13,475 (0.9%)
Lee 857 (15.2%)
Llano 1,192 (-8.7%)
Travis 59,128 (1.6%)
Williamson 37,837 (1.7%)

Looking at the net effect of people moving in and people moving out, Williamson County was the clear leader with a net gain of 14,042 people in 2007-2008—more than twice the number in Travis County and three times Hays County. And while it may be easy to spot the California license plates on I-35, people moving here from other parts of Texas still make up the vast majority of new residents. For example, 63% of people moving to Travis County during 2007-2008 came from another Texas county, compared to only 9% from California.

Check out this neat interactive map created by Chris Ramser here showing county-by-county migration to Travis County. Click on a county to see its value.

We’ll also be posting a few maps to the CAPCOG Information Clearinghouse and covering this in more detail in our annual State of the Region presentation next month. For a look back at our analysis of this data last year, check out Can We Blame California? on our website. Brian Kelsey

Twitter

We're now on Twitter. You can find us @CapcogEconomy. We'll be posting about new data, analysis (here on DP and elsewhere), reports, and other CAPCOG news.

Metro Area Employment Situation September 2009

The Bureau of Labor Statistics today released September estimates for metropolitan areas:

"Unemployment rates were higher in September than a year earlier in 371 of the 372 metropolitan areas and lower in 1 area. Among the 369 metropolitan areas for which nonfarm payroll employment data were available, 359 areas reported over-the-year decreases in employment, and 10 reported increases."

Full text of the release is here.

Austin-Round Rock's unemployment rate of 7.2 percent in September was sixth-lowest among large U.S. metro areas behind Oklahoma City (5.9%), Washington DC (6.2%), Virginia Beach (6.7%), Denver (7.1%), and San Antonio (7.1%).

GovScan

As planners working in the public sector, we're constantly looking for opportunities to learn from experiences in other communities. In fact, I'm convinced that planners came up with the term "best practices" just to assuage our guilt about stealing good ideas from each other. Eric Ervin, part of the wonderful economic gardening team in Littleton, CO, is making our job a little easier. Eric recently launched a state and local government search engine, GovScan, which he built on Google's Custom Search Engine platform. It's a great resource, but I'm going to have to talk to him about CAPCOG's ranking when searching for GIS in Texas. Brian Kelsey

Economic Recovery

Claudia Grisales wrote a nice piece on forecasts for the Austin-Round Rock economy in today's Austin American-Statesman. Her article, Austin's economy recovering, but jobs will come later, features data and analysis from CAPCOG.

Mapping for Everyone

Check out ESRI's Mapping for Everyone website. You can load the map with several types of ESRI's current demographic data, such as unemployment rate, median household income, and population density. ESRI posted a blog last night announcing the new, free service.

Recession Check-In

We’re now 21 months into the recession, and some economists are pointing to September as the possible end date. Prognosticators have taken their fair share of criticism over the past 21 months, but my faith has been somewhat restored lately. IHS Global Insight early this year predicted that total employment in Austin-Round Rock would decline by less than one percent during 2009, and so far that’s looking like a pretty good bet. According to the August report from the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC), total nonfarm employment in Austin-Round Rock declined by 7,200 jobs, or 0.9 percent, between August 2008 and August 2009. Here are the talking points on specific sectors:

· Manufacturing and construction continue to bear the brunt of the recession here, like in many other regions around the U.S. Manufacturing employment in Austin-Round Rock totaled 51,600 jobs in August 2009, down 11.5 percent from one year earlier. Construction and related industries were down by 7.3 percent.
· Tech manufacturing continues its downward slide. Computer and electronic product manufacturing was down to 25,800 jobs in August 2009, a 13.7 percent decline from one year earlier. This is not a new story, so here’s some historical perspective: According to TWC’s data, the last time monthly employment in that sector totaled fewer than 26,000 jobs was October 1990. The peak was 49,900 jobs in January 2001.
· We must love our food and entertainment here. Despite consumers dialing back on discretionary spending, restaurants and bars added 2,400 jobs between August 2008 and August 2009, a 3.8 percent gain. Population growth can explain part of that increase, but I’m still impressed.
· Government spending may be propping up employment in other sectors (e.g., transportation, utilities), but it’s playing only a minor role in direct job creation. Total government employment in Austin-Round Rock grew by only 1,900 jobs, or 1.2 percent, between August 2008 and August 2009. Interestingly, local government added 4,500 jobs, while state government lost 2,500 jobs. Federal employment was virtually unchanged.

Reminder: We recently got a 2009Q3 update from one of our other data providers. So if you’re interested in the economists’ best guesses about which industries and occupations will lead us out of the recession, let us know. Brian Kelsey

Eds and Meds Now Just Meds?

Education and health care have propped up labor markets in many regions of the U.S. during this recession. Michael Mandel's post this morning, Record Drop in Education Jobs, suggests that we may be looking for a new catchphrase. Brian Kelsey

Career and Technical Education

I was glad to hear this week that Texas Comptroller Susan Combs is making $5 million in scholarship money available for career and technical education (Career and Technical Scholarship Fund). Spend a few minutes with folks like Mike Midgley at Austin Community College or Michael Bettersworth at Texas State Technical College and you’ll quickly understand why CTE needs more attention. It’s a vital part of what makes states and regions economically competitive. CTE is also a pathway to higher wage jobs and better standards of living for thousands of people—young and not so young—each year. Corporate relocations and expansions may get the headlines and the glory in this profession, but workforce competitiveness is the real story that separates leading regions from the rest of the pack.

We got new 2009Q3 data on industries and occupations this week from one of our providers, EMSI. I’ll let the numbers do the rest of the talking about the importance of CTE:

· 71 percent of jobs in the Austin-Round Rock region require, on average, less than a bachelor’s degree.
· 70 percent of net new jobs expected between 2009 and 2019 will require less than a bachelor’s degree.
· Jobs requiring on-the-job training only (i.e. no postsecondary degree of any kind) pay an average of $15.11 per hour. Jobs requiring an associate’s degree pay an average of $22.31 per hour.
· Registered nurse is the fastest growing occupation in Austin-Round Rock requiring an associate’s degree. EMSI’s economists predict that we’ll see a net gain of approximately 3,200 registered nurse jobs by 2019. Add in turnover and retirements and that number grows to 4,700.
· Many of the jobs that contribute to Austin-Round Rock’s competitive advantage in specialized workforce require less than a bachelor’s degree. Examples include Electronic Engineering Techs ($21.15 per hour), Semiconductor Processors ($17.71), Industrial Engineering Techs ($23.24), and Environmental Science and Protection Techs ($22.03).
· 61 percent of net new green jobs expected between 2009 and 2019 will require less than a bachelor’s degree.

Finally, I sat through a pretty good training on Career Clusters (Achieve Texas) at our statewide COG meeting last week. For those of you working in the secondary school system, or the parents among you with children in K-12, we have some helpful information for you, too. Go check out the list of Career Clusters and Career Pathways on the Achieve Texas website and then come back to this email. Here’s a list of the 16 Career Clusters ranked by expected annual job openings in Austin-Round Rock between 2009 and 2019:

1. Business, Management, and Administration
2. Marketing, Sales, and Service
3. Hospitality and Tourism
4. Transportation, Distribution, and Logistics
5. Human Services
6. Health Science
7. Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources
8. Finance
9. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)
10. Architecture and Construction
11. Education and Training
12. Arts, A/V Technology, and Communications
13. Government and Public Administration
14. Information Technology
15. Law, Public Safety, Corrections, and Security
16. Manufacturing

Brian Kelsey

2008 American Community Survey Released

If you haven’t heard yet or if perhaps you've forgotten, new Census data in the form of the American Community Survey gives covered areas a fresh look at socio-economic and demographic characteristics each year. The Austin American-Statesman's article, "State's rate of uninsured was highest in the nation, census shows," covers some of this new data released today.

Not all of the American Community Survey data was released today. Most of the single year estimates covering areas with 65,000 or more were released, however, certain economic data covering poverty, food stamp recipients, and family income are being held back until September 29th due to some errors. And all three year estimates for areas of 20,000 or more will be released on October 27th.

To mark this release, we’ve put together a couple of examples comparing single year estimates for the Austin metro region. For more about this Census release, visit their press release.

Median Household Income
The median household income for the Austin metro area has been increasing over the past few years according to the ACS estimates. The data in the chart below shows both the estimate (in blue) and the upper and lower confidence interval (in yellow) from 2005 - 2008. Although the increase from 2006 to 2007 appears to be significant (about $2,500), it is important to note that the increase was still within the margin of error in the survey. But looking over several years of ACS data, the trend does show a statistically significant increase in the Median Household Income. For example, the lower confidence interval for 2008 is higher than the upper confidence interval for 2006. Data is inflation adjusted to 2008 dollars.

(Click image for larger version)

Median Home Value
Likewise, the median home value (median value of owner occupied housing units) is also on a steady upward trend from 2005 to 2008. Despite the fact that the ACS estimate in 2006 was lower than the 2005 estimate, the change was still well within the margin of error of the survey. However, the increase from 2006 to 2007 was greater than the margin of error.

(Click Image for larger version)

Median Gross Rent

It is also not surprising that the median gross rent has been on the increase as well. The increase from 2005 to 2006 was greater than the margin of error. And overall, the median gross rent is at least $40 higher in 2008 than it was in 2005 (inflation was adjusted).

(Click image for larger version)

Below is a distribution of renter occupied housing units by gross rent category. There is a definite increase in the number of renters in certain categories such as $1,000 to $1,249, but it is a little difficult to quantify the change occurring because it is impossible to adjust the data for inflation beyond the adjustment that the Census Bureau does to the current year of the estimate. It is likely that a lot of the change is due to new units in those price categories.

(Click image for larger version)


Stay tuned for future ACS releases.

Chris Ramser

Life Sciences

The Austin American-Statesman ran an interesting article today on venture capital activity in the life sciences sector (Biotech industry tries to shrug off setbacks). Definitions vary for what exactly belongs to the life sciences/biotechnology sector, but its footprint in Austin-Round Rock may surprise you. We currently have approximately 1,300 establishments and 52,500 jobs in the life sciences cluster, up from 43,000 jobs in 2002 (22%). Forecasters predict that our life sciences cluster could grow by another 14,000 jobs (27%) by 2019. (Source: EMSI). Brian Kelsey

Data Tools

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we've been working with the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) on a training curriculum for economic developers interested in learning more about data analysis and regional strategies. We pilot tested the workshop with the Michigan Association of Regions in July and we did another run at NADO's annual conference in Chicago earlier this month.

Scroll down to Professional and Organizational Development and look for the Know Your Region presentations on the NADO website. It's difficult to follow PowerPoint slides after the fact, but you'll be able to find footnotes and examples for all the data tools we discussed. If you want help finding data for your community, let us know. Brian Kelsey

State Rankings on Health Insurance Coverage, Poverty and Income

On Thursday, the Census Bureau released estimates of poverty, income, and health insurance coverage at the state level and several local newspapers have stories reporting that Texas is again at the top of the list when it comes to the highest percentage of uninsured. See (Austin American-Statesman and Austin Business Journal articles).

Texas also had the sixth highest poverty rate at 16.3% and the thirteenth lowest median household income at $46,853 from 2006-2008 according to the data released. The data comes from the Current Population Survey (CPS), which is generally collected monthly with an annual data release of state level data. Socioeconomic data for smaller areas like cities will be coming out through the American Community Survey data (ACS) releases planned on September 22nd and October 27th.

In the meantime, here are a couple of thematic maps of the state level CPS data. We'll highlight some of the ACS data as it gets released.

Health Insurance Coverage
(Click image for larger version)

Poverty Rate

(Click image for larger version)

Median Household Income

(Click image for larger version)

To view more data from this release, visit the Census Bureau's site.

Chris Ramser

Austin-Round Rock Rebound in 2009Q4?

We recently received new forecast data for the Austin-Round Rock economy from IHS Global Insight. According to the experts there, we should be seeing signs of growth again in 2009Q4, and we may even be there already. Here’s a chart showing year-to-year change in real gross metro product for Austin-Round Rock since the start of the recession in 2007Q4:

(click image for larger version)

If you look at their data on a quarter-to-quarter basis, the Austin-Round Rock economy may already be in positive territory. Global Insight estimates that real gross metro product for our region declined in 2008Q4 (-1.5%) and 2009Q1 (-0.6%), and then reversed direction in 2009Q2 (+0.9%). So, depending on your preference for how we run the numbers, this could be really good news.

Here are some other 2009 predictions for Austin-Round Rock from their August release:

Population growth: 59,520 (+3.5%)

Housing starts: virtually unchanged overall from 2008 at around 11,300 total units, but different stories in single-family versus multi-family. Global Insight predicts a 27% increase in private single-family housing starts and a 32% decline in private multi-family housing starts.

Employment: -4,700 jobs or -0.6%. I think this may be a little rosy, because they have unemployment topping out at 7.1% in 2009Q4, and we learned today from the Texas Workforce Commission that we hit 7.3% in July.

Income: flat…again. Global Insight estimates that real per capita income fell below $31,000 in 2008Q3, and we’re currently no better off in this respect than we were in 2004.

We’ll get the next round of data from them in November. Stay tuned.

Brian Kelsey

Austin-Round Rock Data Snapshot

Thanks to the Austin Chapter of the Texas Recruiters Association for inviting us to speak at their August meeting today. Brian Kelsey did a short presentation on the State of the Labor Market in Austin-Round Rock. Click on the link to download a PDF copy.

Discussion topics included:

• Despite employment falling by more than 3% in 2002 as Austin-Round Rock struggled to get out of the last recession, population in the region still increased by 30,000 people. How is the current recession affecting population growth?
• Mobility is a critical part of understanding the regional labor market. 55% of workers in Austin live someplace other than Austin.
• Talent is our greatest competitive advantage, but we have serious challenges that need addressing. According to the latest figures available from the U.S. Census Bureau, 16% of Austin residents age 25+ do not have a high school diploma, including 41% of all Hispanics.
• Thanks to groups like the E3 Alliance, the message about linking education to economic and workforce development is getting out there, but more work is ahead of us. Here's a statistic worth considering: of the jobs in Travis County requiring only a high school diploma, just 16% pay enough to support a family of two adults and two children without a second income.

Areas "Hard to Count" by Census Mapped

(Cross-posted from CAPCOG Census Coordination Blog)

The “Hard to Count (HTC) Score” was developed by the U.S. Census Bureau to help identify areas that might be difficult to enumerate during Census 2010. The HTC score was calculated for every Census tract in the nation using twelve socioeconomic, demographic, and housing variables from Census 2000 that were correlated with high non-response rates. Online Maps have been developed showing this data for the Capital Area.

Online Map HTC Score 70+ (click for here for interactive map)



Online Map HTC Score 30-69 (click for interactive map)


For assistance with the map contact Chris Ramser, 512-916-6184.

Hard to Count Scores range from 0-132. Areas with the highest scores (e.g., over 70) are likely to have relatively high nonresponse and undercount rates, while areas with the lowest scores are likely to be areas with low rates. These high HTC areas may warrant increased level of focus for Census outreach activities.

The first map developed by the Capital Area Council of Governments shows the location of Census tracts in our region with a 70+ HTC score, while the second shows tracts with a score 30 to 69. When you visit one of the maps, click on a shaded area to view Census 2000 data about that Census tract. The field names in the table have been abbreviated, but this definition file contains an explanation of each variable. Also, the KML or KMZ files for each map are posted below for download, allowing users to view the data in Google Earth.

KML or KMZ files
HTC Score 70+ KML

HTC Score 30-69 KMZ

KML and KMZ files can be viewed in the free software, Google Earth, which provides for additional functionality. Google Earth contains preloaded data such as schools, churches and other places of interest that may be used to identify partners or locations for outreach efforts. Users can also select an individual tract or tracts with a score over a certain number.

Recession Impacts on Workers by Age Group in Austin-Round Rock

Thanks to the hard work of folks at the Texas Workforce Commission and the U.S. Census Bureau, we now have a full year of recession data for Austin-Round Rock in the Quarterly Workforce Indicators program. This is noteworthy because it allows us to take a look at how the first year of the recession (2007Q4 to 2008Q4) impacted workers by age group.

Most local economists and the media have noted that Austin-Round Rock came to the recession later than most other places in the U.S., and this new data tells a similar story. You can see in the charts below that job growth ranged from 1.0% to 2.1% between 2007Q4 and 2008Q4 for workers age 25 to 54, and workers age 55+ made even larger gains. You can also see the impacts of people dialing back on consumer expenditures for restaurants, retail, and other types of businesses where younger workers are concentrated. Year-to-year job growth for workers age 14 to 21 dipped into negative territory in 2008Q4 for the first time since Austin-Round Rock was struggling to get out of the last recession in 2002-2003.

These numbers will likely take a turn for the worse when 2009Q1 data is released, but I’m surprised that we didn’t see larger losses in 2008, particularly in the younger end of the labor market. We’ll send out an update when the 2009 data starts coming out.



Click on the image to enlarge it.



Brian Kelsey

Blog Feedback

After a flurry of initial activity, comments on our blog here have been conspicuously absent lately. We want this blog to serve as a medium for discussing regional trends--and the data and tools we can use to understand them--so we'd like to get your feedback on a few questions:

1. Is this blog interesting and useful?
2. Are you using any of the data or tools highlighted here in your own work?
3. What other topics would you like to see covered?
4. Do you prefer the email-style newsletter we used before?

If you'd rather email your comments to us, you can send them to Brian at bkelsey@capcog.org.

Thanks in advance for your help.

BK

Source for Estimated Median Family Income Data

While searching for data sources for a project, I stumbled on a source for current estimates of Median Family Income (MFI) at the Census tract level. Below I've posted a description of this data source as well as a challenge to the blog readers.

The data uses normalized Census 2000 data to calculate the estimates based on the current Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Median Family Income estimates (HUD) of the metro area. The data is hosted by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC). The formula for these estimates is as follows,

2009 Tract MFI = 2009 HUD estimated MFI for the Metro area X Tract MFI percentage (calculated),
where Tract MFI percentage = Census 2000 tract MFI / 2004 statewide MFI

To access this data for the tracts in your county, you may visit the FFIEC’s Census Report tool.

Because the formula is based largely on Census 2000 figures, the estimates would likely not accurately represent the MFI for tracts that have seen significant change. I've yet to compare the estimates to other private data sources, so if you’d like to see how these numbers compare to others for your area, post a comment making that request and I’ll run the numbers for the County with the most requests.

Lastly, if you are looking for MFI for a grant, more than likely you’ll have to stick with the Census 2000 numbers or the new American Community Survey estimates (currently only available for geographies of over 20,000).

Chris Ramser

Small Town Economic Development

Most people know how I feel about long reports, but the Small Towns, Big Ideas project at UNC is worth checking out. The website offers a searchable database where you can peruse case studies by type of community (e.g., towns with historic downtowns or prominent cultural or heritage assets), strategy (e.g., arts/creative economy), or population. I also love the fact that you can narrow your search to "long, analytic case studies" or "short, descriptive case studies". Brian Kelsey

How Many Startups Provide Health Insurance?

Scott Shane over at Economix posted a good summary yesterday of what we know about "how the health care mess affects entrepreneurship." According to the Kauffman Firm Survey, which tracks a sample of nearly 5,000 businesses started in 2004, and other sources from the Kaiser Family Foundation and U.S. Small Business Administration:

• 29.5 percent of new employers provide health insurance to full-time workers
• Majority of businesses with three to nine employees do not offer health insurance
• 49.3 percent of self-employed workers have employment-based health coverage, compared to 70.5 percent of wage and salary workers

Check out the full post for more interesting statistics--and keep in mind that more than one out of five workers in Austin-Round Rock are self-employed. Brian Kelsey

How do you do regional economic development?

We'll be pilot-testing a one-day curriculum on economic development, with an emphasis on regionalism, in Michigan this week with the National Association of Development Organizations. The training will be based on the Know Your Region curriculum developed by Western Carolina University for the Economic Development Administration. Depending on how it goes this week, we may do a workshop here in Austin if people are interested. If you'd like a copy of the slides, let us know by emailing Brian, and we'll send you a link next week.

Unemployment Rate Up Nearly 1% in Austin-Round Rock Area

According to the Texas Workforce Commission, the unemployment rate across Texas rose to 7.5% in June, but remained two percentage points below the U.S. rate of 9.5%. The rate for the Austin-Round Rock metro area was 7.1%, which was a 0.9% increase from May. For the ten counties in the CAPCOG region, the rate also increased by nearly a point to 7.0%. There were 9,300 more unemployed individuals in the CAPCOG area compared to a month ago, while the number of employed people also increased by 2,200 from the total one month ago.

Compared to the other 24 metro areas in Texas, Austin-Round Rock’s unemployment rate was tied for the second lowest increase from May to June 2009. So I guess that is one small piece of good news in this latest release. Below is a table of how Texas’ metro areas measure up in this statistic.

(Click image to view larger version)

We’ll continue to monitor the unemployment data releases and post information on our Data Points blog. To view an employment summary for the counties in our region, please this site.

Chris Ramser

Existing Industry Appreciation Night in Round Rock

Thanks to Charley Ayres and the rest of the folks at the Round Rock Chamber of Commerce for inviting us to speak last night at their annual Existing Industry Appreciation Night. Judging from the number of people in the room, it's clear that economic development efforts in Round Rock have strong support from both the private and public sectors.

A few highlights from the brief presentation we did:

• Round Rock has grown by approximately 41,500 residents since 2000--roughly the equivalent of adding an entire Pflugerville.
• Round Rock's jobs to housing ratio, a key metric for understanding the balance between community development and economic development, is 1.6 jobs per housing unit. That exceeds the U.S. average of 1.4 and is only slightly behind Austin at 1.9.
• Round Rock is clearly tied to the regional economy. Nearly 80% of Round Rock residents cross a county boundary for work. At the same time, companies in Round Rock employ more Austin residents (22%) than Round Rock residents (20%).
• Taxable retail sales per capita in Round Rock exceeded $10,000 in 2008, one of the highest figures in the region.
• Companies in Round Rock produced $8 billion in total gross sales last year.
• Sales in 2008 were down for many industries, but Round Rock's creative class was a bright spot. Creative class companies--professional, scientific, and technical services--achieved 39% growth in sales last year compared to 2007.

Here's a link to download the full presentation on Round Rock economic development.

Asset Mapping: Telling Good Stories About Your Community's Competitive Advantage

We've been busy this summer collecting data for a regional asset map, which will go into our new economic development strategy for 2010-2015. Asset mapping is really just planning jargon for doing what all good economic developers do anyway: maintaining an inventory of all the things that make your city or county a competitive location for business, people, etc.

Here are two examples I really like because they are web-based and interactive, as opposed to a document that sits on a shelf somewhere:

Twin Cities Compass
Florida's Great Northwest

The communication medium is critical for getting information across to people, especially when you are talking about community and economic research. Florida's Great Northwest asset mapping website works equally well with site selectors, media, elected officials, and the general public. This is what differentiates economic development programs these days.

Ever Wonder About Fast Growing Industries Outside Austin?

Thanks to Workforce Solutions Rural Capital Area for publishing an excellent new resource for labor market information in the region. As you can probably guess, we're big fans of one-stop shopping for understanding key trends. This new data tool covers much of what you need to know about local economies outside Austin. Go check it out.

Census Bureau Releases City Population Figures

The U.S. Census Bureau has released its annual population estimates for U.S. cities and the Austin Business Journal has published an article highlighting some of the major findings from this data release. The article can be found online here.

It's no secret that many cities in the Capital Area region have experienced high rates of growth over the past decade. We've put together a map and a couple of tables that highlight some of the new population data. Note, the population figures are as of July 1, 2008.

The map shows the population of each city in our region and categorizes both the numeric growth (by size of each dot) and the percentage growth (by the color of each dot) over the past year from 2007-2008. Check the map out, here.

There are also many interesting oneliners that can be said of growth in the cities of our region. The first table shows the population estimates and percent and numeric change for some of the biggest gainers. Cities were selected in this list based on whether they were in the Top 100 in the U.S. or Top 50 in Texas for percent or numeric growth from 2000 to 2008 or 2007 to 2008. While the second table shows where that city ranks in those lists versus other Texas and U.S. cities.

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Before we start comparing though, we must advise that comparing percentage growth for a large city like Austin (2.5% from 2007-2008) to a small town like Round Top (7.7% from 2007 to 2008) may not be the best comparision. It might better to group cities by relative size.

Chris Ramser

The Numbers behind the Unemployment Rate

Last week, the Texas Workforce Commission released employment figures for May showing the Capital Area region’s unemployment rate increased from 5.8% to 6.1%. Because the rate had decreased the previous two months and has now increased again, I thought it might be a good time to take a closer look at the numbers.

The graph below shows how the unemployment rate has changed for the Capital Area region over the past two years. The most obvious observations are the two big spikes from April to June 2008 and from October 2008 to January 2009. From January to May 2009, the rate seems relatively stable. After all, there has always been some fluctuation from month to month, which begs the question whether these recent subtle changes are just data noise?

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The unemployment rate is calculated through a Federal-State cooperative program between the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Texas Workforce Commission using estimates produced of the number of employed and unemployed. These estimates are derived from a model using a number of data sources including current and historical data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and the Current Employment Statistics program, and State maintained unemployment insurance data. More about the methodology can be found here.

Even if the unemployment rate remained at a steady 4%, the number of unemployed in the Capital Area would still increase slightly because of the region’s growing population. The graph below shows this trend by looking at change in the number of unemployed each month compared to the number from the same time a year ago. This graph also shows the steady increase in the number of unemployed people in the late summer 2008 and continuing into 2009. As of April 2009, the number of unemployed people was 72% higher than April 2008. Since the percent change is calculated from a year ago, we start to see the graph heading downward. This should continue over the next few months unless additional layoffs occur. As CAPCOG continues to monitor economic conditions in the next few months, we’ll keep this chart updated.

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Likewise, the number of employed people in the Capital Area should increase over time if the unemployment rate is constant. For the most part, this pattern has occurred except during the period from October 2008 to January 2009 when we saw the big spike in the unemployment rate. As economic recovery happens, there should be an increase in these estimates. In fact, the latest numbers released show the highest number of employed people over all previous months in the last two years.

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One final note, if the labor force continues to increase at its current pace, we would need to have an increase of about 9,700 unemployed people to raise the unemployment rate by 1% (to 7.1%) in one months time. This type of increase has happened just once over the past 24 months from December 2008 to January 2009.

Below is a current employment summary for each county within the CAPCOG region. For more employment data, visit the Texas Workforce Commission.

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Chris Ramser

Economic Gardening: Growing Local Businesses

Mike Knutson over at ReImagine Rural posted some comments on economic gardening yesterday, including a brief video interview with Chris Gibbons. Chris runs the economic gardening program in Littleton, Colorado. He's also done more in the last 20 years to promote entrepreneurship-based economic development than anybody else in our field. Peruse their website, read about their results, and you'll see what I mean.

Most people in the economic development field today realize that a winning strategy must include a variety of approaches: recruiting, marketing, retention, entrepreneurship, workforce, and community development. Austin-Round Rock is fortunate to have organizations specialized in all of these various functions. But our ability to march together toward common goals will determine our position among leading U.S. regions. Brian Kelsey

Affordable Austin

BusinessWeek published an article called Affordable Austin last week, detailing comparisons between Austin-Round Rock and a few of our peer regions like Portland and San Francisco. Here's a map showing where people came from who moved to Travis County in 2006. We generated the map using county-to-county migration records from the IRS. Click on the image for a larger version. We'll be getting the 2008 data as soon as it's available so stay tuned for an update on this topic. Also, check out a story we did last year on people moving to Austin from California.



Brian Kelsey

Unpacking Unemployment Data

Michael Mandel at BusinessWeek writes frequently about how different segments of the labor market--college-educated, people with high school diplomas, etc.--are faring in the recession we've experienced over the last 18 months. Check out his latest post called Which Educated Workers Are Unemployed? to get a sense for how this data can be used. We did a trial run using similar unemployment data for Travis County with Workforce Solutions Capital Area recently. Later this summer we'll be exploring ways to provide that information on a monthly basis.

New City Population Estimates Coming July 1st

The U.S. Census Bureau will be releasing new estimates for city populations on July 1st. The latest data will cover the July 2008 time period. We'll post the data here for the cities in the Capital Area, along with some analysis. Stay tuned.

Career Clusters

Seedco published an interesting report last month called A Tale of Two Systems: Linking Economic Development and Workforce Development. Promoting collaboration among economic development, workforce training, and education has been a cause du jour for some time, and I'm glad to see researchers weighing in with case studies of actual projects. Hopefully one day somebody will take a look at what's going on in Texas.

We tackle this challenge in a slightly different way. In addition to running committees that involve people from economic development, workforce development, and education, one of CAPCOG's primary roles is to create information--data sets, maps, presentations, this blog--that provide opportunities for collaboration. For example, we've partnered with Workforce Solutions Rural Capital Area to provide labor market information tied to Career Clusters, which form the basis of career and technical education programs in secondary schools. Here's a table showing the 16 federally-defined Career Clusters and the job outlook for the Capital Area between 2009 and 2014. Click on the image for a larger version (source: EMSI).



School districts can use this information in several ways: (1) to prioritize career and technical education course offerings based on regional labor market trends (e.g., which Career Clusters give our students the greatest opportunity to find a well-paying job in a growing field?); (2) to emphasize the connection between secondary education and workforce availability (which can be very helpful for encouraging businesses to offer internships, job shadowing, etc.; and (3) to help students understand career options after high school, regardless of whether or not they decide to pursue postsecondary education immediately.

Brian Kelsey

Yuppies, Burbs, and Hippies, Oh My!

Ben Philpott at KUT is talking market segmentation on his blog today. Visit Notes from the Lege to read about a new national research project called Patchwork Nation and then read CAPCOG's article on Central Texas called Yuppies, Burbs, and Hippies, Oh My!, by Sean Moran.

Austin-Round Rock Gained Jobs in April

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released preliminary April employment data for U.S. metro areas today. Total non-farm employment in Austin-Round Rock (Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, and Williamson counties) increased from 776,500 jobs in March to 781,400 jobs in April. This marks the third consecutive month of net job growth in the region (not seasonally adjusted).

Notably, employment in goods producing industries in Austin-Round Rock was down by only 500 jobs in April, which is encouraging given the pace of recent losses. Other good news: consumer spending may be stabilizing (retail, hotel, and restaurant jobs are all up from this time last year) and professional and business service sector employment is back to its all-time high last seen in October 2008.

Some bad news: computer, semiconductor, and other electronic component manufacturing continues to slide. Semiconductor manufacturing employment in April was 15,700 jobs, which virtually erases all the gains since April 2006.

Brian Kelsey

Technology Regions

Ross DeVol discusses the Milken Institute's latest study of North America's High-Tech Economy over at Newgeography. This latest edition includes Mexico, which needs to be part of any discussion about the future of regional economies in Texas. Austin-Round Rock ranks 20th, and the authors call it "arguably the quintessential 21st-century knowledge-based community." No argument here.

Brian Kelsey

Recession Ending in 2009Q4?

We got the latest economic forecast for the Austin-Round Rock economy from IHS Global Insight today. According to one set of experts (we also use data from Moody's Economy.com and a few other sources), the Austin-Round Rock economy may turn the corner as early as 2009Q4.

IHS Global Insight predicts a slight increase in gross metro product in 2009Q4, ending a string of four consecutive quarters of decline (not adjusted for inflation). The company also expects 2009Q4 to mark the end of declining total employment in Austin-Round Rock.

Here's a table showing expected change in employment by industry between 2009Q2 and 2010Q2. Click on the image for a larger version.



We may see these numbers improve in the next update from IHS Global Insight, because the company estimates our current unemployment rate at 6.9%. According to the Texas Workforce Commission, that figure may be more like 5.8%.

Brian Kelsey

April Unemployment

For the second month in a row the unemployment rate improved in the Capital Area, according to data released today by the Texas Workforce Commission. The unemployment rate fell to 5.7% in April (not seasonally-adjusted), compared to 6.1% in March, while Texas held steady at 6.7%. Unemployment in the five-county Austin-Round Rock metropolitan area was 5.8%.

These figures indicate the Capital Area has weathered the recession relatively well compared to other regions in the U.S. The highest unemployment rate during this recession so far was 6.2% in February 2009. By contrast, regions such as Raleigh and Denver experienced unemployment rates between 8% and 9% in March (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

While today’s announcement is a positive sign, there are still 51,500 unemployed people in the Capital Area accounted for in April, which is roughly 20,000 more than one year ago.

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Chris Ramser

Measuring Innovation: Patents

The ability to generate new ideas and move them into the market as products and services is the foundation of an innovation-based economy. For people focused on economic development, this is a two-part equation: idea generation and commercialization. Ideas without the market can be inherently valuable for improving our understanding of the world, but you need both parts of the equation to drive economic outcomes: new companies, more sales, and higher incomes.

Tracking registered patents is one way to measure your region's capacity for generating new ideas that could potentially move into the marketplace. Economic developers can use patents to accomplish several goals:

1. Identify competitive advantage - understand which industries in your region are driving the generation of new ideas. It should come as little surprise that the vast majority of patents in Austin-Round Rock are in the field of information technology:

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2. Benchmarking - track your region's performance against other regions. Benchmarking is an easy way to quickly identify what makes your region unique, which can be helpful for marketing, strategic planning, and a variety of other purposes. You can also use benchmarking to identify learning opportunities--i.e. which regions are getting this right, and what can we learn from their approaches to economic development? Staying with our example of information technology, here's how Austin-Round Rock measures up to a few peer regions. Remember to normalize this data--patents per 10,000 employees is popular--if you want a level scale for comparison.

Source: Decision Data Resources

3. Identify key assets - the first rule of economic development is to know the companies doing business in your region. Figure out who is driving innovation in your region and get their take on the opportunities and challenges facing local companies. For example, is your region providing the human capital needed to generate new ideas and drive innovation? In Austin-Round Rock, more than 200 companies registered a total of approximately 2,700 information technology patents in 2006. Five companies accounted for nearly 60% of those patents: IBM, Freescale, AMD, Dell, and National Instruments. IBM led the way with more than 900.

Next up in our measuring innovation series: federal funding.

Brian Kelsey

Green Jobs

EMSI (one of the data providers we use) has published a helpful guide to understanding green jobs for the economic and workforce development worlds.

There is, of course, some disagreement about whether or not "green" jobs are really all that different from existing jobs (i.e. Does a HVAC technician go from a non-green job to a green job if he or she learns how to do an energy audit?). But the important point here is that, if you are interested in understanding and measuring the Capital Area's green workforce assets, then there is information available to help you.

Here's a list of occupations ranked by full-time jobs in the Capital Area that EMSI has identified as part of a solar power cluster:

Construction laborers
Operating engineers and other construction equipment operators
Electrical and electronic equipment assemblers
Electricians
Electrical engineers
Construction managers
Electrical and electronic engineering technicians
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers
Electromechanical equipment assemblers
Helpers--Installation, maintenance, and repair workers
Helpers, electricians
Electrical and electronics repairers, commercial and industrial equipment
Structural metal fabricators and fitters
Installation, maintenance, and repair workers, all other
Helpers, construction trades, all other

These occupations represent approximately 31,000 full-time jobs in the Capital Area, and there are expected to be more than 7,000 openings for workers in the next five years. Wages range from an average of $10.88 for entry-level to $24.07 for experienced workers. Education and training requirements for these jobs in the Capital Area are as follows:

20% require short-term on-the-job training
45% require moderate-term on-the-job training
14% require long-term on-the-job training
21% require postsecondary education

Finally, here's a map showing where these jobs are located by zip code in the Capital Area. The darker shades of green indicate where jobs are concentrated.

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Source: EMSI

If you'd like more information about green jobs in your community, let us know, and we'd be happy to help you identify data available for your work.

Brian Kelsey

Retail Sales Improving?

With sales tax revenue down approximately 12% in the Capital Area’s two largest cities, Austin and Round Rock, some may wonder how the smaller cities are faring. The short answer: a few cities are actually showing an increase in sales revenue, while others are slightly down when compared to the same time last year. The graph below represents the net change in sales tax payments from January 2009 to May 2009, compared to the same time last year for each city in the Capital Area with a population of more than 5,000 residents.

Note: Because of a lag in the data, this information may not correspond exactly to the time when actual sales occurred.

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Several cities posted double-digit increases in sales tax revenue, including Lakeway, Pflugerville, and Kyle, which likely benefited from new retail establishments and population growth. However, midsized cities of 20,000 to 99,999 were, on average, 2.4% off pace from last year’s sales revenue, while small cities, those with population of 5,000 to 19,999, were down 3.6% (not adjusted for inflation).

Tracking sales tax data is important as it represents a critical component of a local government’s budget, including a portion of the city’s general fund, and sometimes other programs like economic development, street maintenance and repair, and to pay for debt service on special community venues. In addition, other entities, such as Special Purpose Districts, Transit Agencies, and the State of Texas, also rely on this revenue stream for their operations.

Sales data is also an indicator of economic vitality. There is some evidence to suggest that sales nationwide may be stabilizing as the consumer confidence index recently posted a slight increase in March and a significant increase in April, meaning many retailers may see better days ahead. And workers will get a small boost this year and may decide to spend the extra $400.00 that most will receive from the “making work pay tax credit”, a part of the economic stimulus package.

The last piece of what I will call not great but better news is that with the May sales tax revenue, the net payments to Austin and Round Rock were still down, but not by as large of a margin as previous months this year: -9.5% in Austin and -4.0% in Round Rock for May. Both are still roughly 12% off last year’s figures.

Here's a table showing sales tax revenue for selected cities in the Capital Area, comparing January 2009-May 2009 to one year ago. More data can be found on the Texas Comptroller's website.

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Chris Ramser

Joel Kotkin: Austin's Competitive Advantage

In his latest New Geographer column in Forbes, Joel Kotkin describes why he recently ranked Austin as the best big city in the U.S. for jobs.

What do you think of his arguments?

Measuring Innovation: Venture Capital

Innovation is a tricky topic for economic development. Understanding why innovation is critical for economic development can be challenging, and figuring out how to communicate your region's competitive advantage can be even more daunting. So we're going to devote the next few blog entries here to the topic of measuring innovation. First up: venture capital.

With the possible exception of Silicon Valley, nearly every region in the U.S. when surveyed about business conditions will report access to capital as a challenge for economic development. While venture capital is, of course, not the only source of funding available to entrepreneurs, it's the one that seems to capture the lion's share of public awareness. This is important to economic developers for two main reasons: (1) venture capital activity is tracked by media in most major markets and serves as an indicator of a region's economic performance; and (2) many analysts use venture capital as a proxy for assessing a region's capacity for innovation. In other words, money flows to regions where interesting things are happening.

Knowing whether venture capital activity is increasing or decreasing in your region is a good start, but there is much more data available to economic developers who are interested in digging deeper. For example, the chart below shows recent venture capital investment in some of Austin-Round Rock's major industry sectors. Data is also available on which VC firms are investing in your region and which companies in your region are attracting funding. Funding by stage (Series A, B, etc.) is also available.

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Source: Decision Data Resources

Economic developers can use this data in a variety of ways:

1. Evaluate whether or not access to capital is a potential barrier to economic development in your region. (But remember that VC is not the entire ballgame)
2. Identify emerging industries in your region. Venture capital firms will likely find emerging opportunities before you will. Continually revisit your targeted industries--are you adapting your strategy to account for tomorrow's economy?
3. Identify and reach out to companies attracting venture capital investment. Understand why they've been successful. Make them part of your story about why your region is a leading place for innovation-based economic development.
4. Identify which venture capital firms have invested in your region. Are they local, based somewhere else in the U.S., or abroad? Which industries are they targeting? Where are the financing gaps? Don't overlook VC firms in your marketing efforts.
5. Measure, benchmark, and take action. Venture capital data is available for most regions in the U.S. Compare VC activity in your region to VC activity in peer regions for a look at how you stack up to your competitors.

Next up: patents.

Brian Kelsey

Making Data Easier

Google is upping the ante again in its quest to make data more accessible and easier to work with. The company has launched search capability for public data, and they've kicked off by providing access to unemployment and population statistics. Type "Williamson County population" into Google, for example, and then click on the chart at the top of the search results. It will bring you to an interactive map that shows population change in Williamson County over time and allows you to compare Williamson County to other counties in the U.S. in a matter of seconds.

Add this new service to a growing list of tools like Gapminder and Many Eyes and you get the feeling that we're on the cusp of a giant leap forward in how people access and use public data to communicate. At the very least, presentations are getting a whole lot easier.

Brian Kelsey

New GDP Estimates for 2008

The Bureau of Economic Analysis this morning published 2008 estimates of real gross domestic product (GDP) by industry. A couple of highlights from the news release:

• No surprise that manufacturing led the downturn. Durable-goods manufacturing fell at an annual, inflation-adjusted rate for the first time since 2001. Goods-producing industry sectors accounted for only 18.9% of total GDP in 2008, which is the lowest since the BEA started collecting this data in 1947.
• Finance/insurance and retail declined for the first time since the early 1990s.
• Technology was a bright spot. Value added in technology industries increased by 9% in 2008. BEA notes that technology industries made up only 3.8% of total GDP in 2008, but accounted for 30% of real U.S. GDP growth between 2007 and 2008.

Unfortunately, we don't have comparable statistics for counties or the Austin-Round Rock metro area (BEA will publish 2007 data for metro areas in September). The latest data we have on the local manufacturing industry comes from IHS Global Insight. They estimate that manufacturing job losses in Austin-Round Rock will peak at -10.1% in 2009Q3.

Brian Kelsey

BEA Releases 2007 Per Capita Income Estimates for U.S. Counties

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis today released 2007 estimates for per capita income in U.S. counties. The lag on federal and state data sources can be frustrating, but given the limited resources dedicated to most statistical programs, we'll take what we can get.

Here are the new figures for the counties in CAPCOG's service area. The inflation-adjusted change from 2006 is noted in parenthesis.

Bastrop $26,011 (0.9%)
Blanco $37,135 (6.7%)
Burnet $33,413 (2.0%)
Caldwell $23,849 (0.6%)
Fayette $35,196 (3.6%)
Hays $28,729 (-0.7%)
Lee $30,524 (4.1%)
Llano $31,698 (3.0%)
Travis $40,430 (-2.0%)
Williamson $35,659 (2.9%)

Note that Blanco County now has the second-highest per capita income in the region, and Fayette County is trailing Williamson County by only a few hundred dollars. I'm not sure yet what to make of the significant gains in the rural counties. Thoughts?

Brian Kelsey

Unemployment Indicators

We've watched the unemployment rate for the Austin-Round Rock metro area climb from 3.7% at the beginning of the recession in December 2007 to 6.2% in March 2009. Unemployment in Travis County now stands at 5.9%. We see these figures reported on every month, but what do we really know about how the recession is impacting our labor market? Knowing simply whether the unemployment rate is moving up or down is an important (lagging) indicator of general economic conditions, but it doesn't provide much in the way of useful information.

We've been working on this question lately with Workforce Solutions Capital Area. When people file for unemployment insurance--UI claimants in workforce parlance--they are asked several questions such as race/ethnicity, educational attainment, and military service. Using the UI claimant records (with all personal identifiers like name and address deleted), we were able to put together a more complete picture of the people behind the unemployment statistics we see reported every month. A few disclaimers: (1) Not all workers are covered by UI so this analysis leaves out a lot of folks (e.g., self-employment); (2) the data includes only people who filed for benefits; and (3) we've only scratched the surface so there's much more to be learned.

Here's a bit about what we've uncovered so far:

• 29,319 people filed for UI in Travis County between December 2007 and February 2009.


• African-Americans and possibly other minority groups are disproportionately represented among UI claimants, compared to their shares of the total population.


• Despite the fact that this recession is impacting all segments of the labor market--low-skill to high-skill--education is making a difference. In Travis County, 42.4% of the population age 25 and older has at least a bachelor's degree. People with at least a bachelor's degree have represented only 9.2% of all UI claimants since the beginning of the recession.


• Average age for UI claimants is 39. One out of five UI claimants is age 50 or older.


• The recession is impacting all career fields, but some more than others. Production workers have been hit especially hard. Production workers make up about 3.7% of all workers in Travis County. Yet, they represented about 10% of all UI claimants.

We've posted a short presentation called Unemployment Trends in Travis County on the CAPCOG website, which summarizes these findings.

Mining information on UI claimants can provide a valuable planning tool for economic and workforce development programs. We look forward to hearing your ideas on how we can use it.

Brian Kelsey

Welcome!

Welcome to CAPCOG's new Data Points blog. We're moving from our old newsletter format to this blog so we can publish more material and communicate more frequently with Data Points readers. We think you'll be happy with the switch--one less email to deal with.

A few parting words about the old Data Points. At last count, we had more than 2,400 people on the mailing list. Readership stretched across nearly every community in the ten-county Capital Area region, as well as several folks at the state level here in Texas. We've archived the Data Points articles on the CAPCOG website here if you'd like to go back and read them.

Thank you for your interest in local and regional planning. We hope you'll continue the conversation with us here on the blog.