Deep Driver: Jobs
Transforming Louisville’s economy into a fully competitive one will require substantial growth in another area of weakness — the higher-value, higher-wage technical and professional sectors. To enter the top tier of peer cities, the proportion of workers employed in those fields must grow to 40% from the current 35%.
Last year, for the first time, half of the 2,544 jobs that Greater Louisville Inc., the Metro Chamber of Commerce, helped bring to the region were in professional and technical fields, breaking through the historic threshold of $40,000 in average pay. This heartening evidence that the region is beginning to attract 21st Century jobs, however, was insufficient to offset the punishing effects of the Great Recession’s job losses.
The graphic "Recessions' Impact on Louisville MSA Employment" below compares job losses in the Louisville MSA during major recessions since 1970, charting the depth and duration before employment recovered to pre-recession levels. The Louisville region has lost more than 29,000 jobs in the current recession and is suffering high rates of unemployment. In addition, the community had barely recovered from the job losses from the 2000 recession before the current downturn began. The 1980 recession went even deeper, as shown in the chart.
Key investments in the new economy have slowed during the recession. Research and development funding at the University of Louisville grew 132% from 2000 to 2008 but declined slightly between 2007 and 2008. U of L ranks 16th on this measure among 18 universities it uses as aspirational benchmarks.
The poverty rate in Louisville has risen back up to 14%, after having fallen over the last decade. Louisville stands in the middle among its peer cities on this measure of economic vitality – behind Raleigh and Charlotte at 8 to 10% but better than Memphis at almost 19%. Lower- and median-income families pay higher state and local taxes here than in most of Louisville’s peer cities, however.
Deep Driver: Jobs
Transforming Louisville’s economy into a fully competitive one will require substantial growth in another area of weakness — the higher-value, higher-wage technical and professional sectors. To enter the top tier of peer cities, the proportion of workers employed in those fields must grow to 40% from the current 35%.
Last year, for the first time, half of the 2,544 jobs that Greater Louisville Inc., the Metro Chamber of Commerce, helped bring to the region were in professional and technical fields, breaking through the historic threshold of $40,000 in average pay. This heartening evidence that the region is beginning to attract 21st Century jobs, however, was insufficient to offset the punishing effects of the Great Recession’s job losses.
The graphic "Recessions' Impact on Louisville MSA Employment" below compares job losses in the Louisville MSA during major recessions since 1970, charting the depth and duration before employment recovered to pre-recession levels. The Louisville region has lost more than 29,000 jobs in the current recession and is suffering high rates of unemployment. In addition, the community had barely recovered from the job losses from the 2000 recession before the current downturn began. The 1980 recession went even deeper, as shown in the chart.
Key investments in the new economy have slowed during the recession. Research and development funding at the University of Louisville grew 132% from 2000 to 2008 but declined slightly between 2007 and 2008. U of L ranks 16th on this measure among 18 universities it uses as aspirational benchmarks.
The poverty rate in Louisville has risen back up to 14%, after having fallen over the last decade. Louisville stands in the middle among its peer cities on this measure of economic vitality – behind Raleigh and Charlotte at 8 to 10% but better than Memphis at almost 19%. Lower- and median-income families pay higher state and local taxes here than in most of Louisville’s peer cities, however.