Monday, July 24, 2017

State Health Care Employment 2016

State Health Care Employment 2016

Health care employment varies widely from one state to another. In the national economy establishment employment in health care has 19.1 million jobs, or 13.2 percent of national employment. California employs 2.183 million in the four health care sub-sectors of physicians services, hospitals, nursing and residential care and social services. California has the high while Wyoming is the low with only 24.8 thousand jobs working in the health care industry. The high percentage for health care in statewide employment is 17.3 percent in Massachusetts and the low 8.8 percent in Wyoming.

To allow for the enormous state population differences it is necessary to use employment per thousand population to compare state variation. Variations diminish but remain: California has 55.6 employed in health care per thousand population while Wyoming has 42.8 per thousand population and Massachusetts 90.5.

The high for health care employment per thousand population is 101 in the District of Columbia while the low is 39 in Nevada. There are 9 states with health care employment below 50 per thousand while 13 states have health care employment above 70 per thousand. The average is 61.3.

The five southern states - Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina – are among the nine low health care employment per thousand population states. The other four including Nevada are Utah, Wyoming and Hawaii.

The nine states above 70 jobs per thousand population have five of the six New England states – Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island – and also close by New York and Pennsylvania are above 70 per thousand population as well. However the remaining six show less connection to location or population. They are the District of Columbia and Delaware in the east and North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota in the mid-west.

There are 32 states and the District of Columbia that took the Obama Care Medicaid option and 19 states that did not. All five of the low health care employment southern states mentioned above did not take the Medicaid option. Florida, Virginia, Tennessee and Texas did not take the Medicaid option either. While their health care employment was above 50 per thousand population, they were below the average; all four were between 50 and 55 per thousand population.

The remaining ten states that did not take the Medicaid option are scattered geographically and show a moderate correlation with employment per thousand population. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the Medicaid option (Yes = 1, No = 0) and health care jobs per thousand population in the fifty states and the District of Columbia equals .36, where 0 means random variation and 1 predicts exact variation.

If we think of health care employment per thousand population as a measure of state effort and commitment to health care, then there are some good signs. Every single state and the District of Columbia have a higher health care employment per thousand population in 2016 than in 2007, the last full year before the 2008 to 2010 recession. All the states are doing better. Four states have an increase over 20 percent and 12 more had an increase of 15 to 20 percent. However, the correlation between health care per thousand population in 2007 and 2016 is high, .98, meaning roughly the same relative differences between the states continue now as they were in 2007. While it is certain the Medicaid option helps health care employment the effect so far appears modest. The differences suggest a difference of state preferences reflected through fifty-one varied political systems, although the result does not necessarily reflect the popular will. We know there is money in politics as well as health care.






Thursday, July 20, 2017

Ohio Jobs 2016

Ohio Jobs 2016

Ohio establishment jobs dropped from a high of 5.625 million in 2000 to 5.427 million in 2007 before the Bush recession cut employment further to 5.036 million in 2010 just as the recession came to an end. Ohio lost so many manufacturing jobs in the seven years from 2000 to 2007 it lost a statewide average of 197 thousand jobs a month even though national employment increased from 132 million to just under 138 million jobs during the same years. Note (1)

The recession ran from the fall of 2008 until spring of 2010, which makes 2007 the last full year before the 2008 to 2010 recession got started. The national establishment employment surpassed the pre-recession high in 2014. Ohio jobs finally climbed above its 2007 total in 2016 when jobs reached an average monthly total of 5.481 million, a total that surpasses pre-recession employment by 54 thousand jobs, or just 1 percent above 2007. Ohio ranks 39th in the percentage increase of statewide jobs above the pre-recession total. Nine states remain below 2007 totals. There were just 54 thousand new statewide jobs even though the Bureau of Census reports an increase in the Ohio population over 147 thousand.

National establishment employment reached 144.3 million in 2016, up 6.3 million jobs over 2007. The increase in national employment is a net increase because many industry sub sectors like manufacturing lost jobs. In Ohio, natural resources, construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, information services, financial activities, personal services, non-profit associations, and government services all lost jobs in the years 2007 to 2016. The total of jobs lost in these sectors equals 200.2 thousand. Since Ohio had a net increase of 54 thousand jobs, Ohio had 254.2 thousand new jobs in just a few sub sectors to offset the job losses.

To make up for job losses in declining industries assures that remaining industries will become especially important as a source of new jobs. Over the last two decades new jobs in the U.S. economy have come from a short list of industry sub-sectors and especially so in Ohio where new jobs came primarily from business and professional services, health care and leisure-hospitality.

Business and professional services have three components: 1. professional and technical services, 2. establishments that manage companies and enterprises, and 3. administrative and support services. In Ohio, two professional and technical services - computer design and related services and management and technical consulting – added 21.1 thousand jobs. The job gains in these two professional sub sectors offset job losses in other professional services like legal services, accounting and bookkeeping services, architecture and engineering services, and advertising and related services, which cut the net increase to 15.8 thousand professional jobs.

Management of companies and enterprises added 26.6 thousand jobs, an unusually large number. These are office jobs of holding companies and corporate, subsidiary and regional managing offices. In the national economy establishments managing companies make up 1.5 percent of employment, but 2.5 percent in Ohio. The 26.6 thousand new jobs raised the Ohio share of employment in this sub sector from 2.0 to 2.5 percent of statewide employment.

Administrative and support services including waste management added 11.5 thousand jobs, but 6.7 thousand of these jobs were in services to buildings and dwellings that includes janitorial services, landscaping, carpet cleaners and exterminators.

Health care added 107.6 thousand jobs primarily in physician services, hospitals and social services. Private school education added 22.3 thousand jobs and state and local government education another 4.4 thousand jobs. Leisure and hospitality added 50.2 thousand jobs, but with 75 percent of the jobs at restaurants: 37.3 thousand of 50.2 thousand jobs. Slightly 60 percent of new jobs in Ohio came from just two professional services, management of companies and health care. Including the jobs from leisure and hospitality adds another 20 percent. Add 8 percent more for private schools.

Those with college and professional degree skills specialized in computing, accounting, finance and health care have the best chance of finding self supporting work. Employment in health care tends to be widely dispersed geographically given the need for patients to visit doctors and clinics. Ohio has kept up well with health care employment and wisely took the Medicaid expansion. However, more and more of professional and technical services can be delivered electronically, which allows them to be produced and delivered from any other state. Electronic delivery of professional services puts the states in competition for these jobs. In the national economy professional and technical services make up 6.15 percent of jobs, but only 4.69 percent in Ohio in 2016. For the years from 2007 to 2016 Ohio ranks 30th for job gains in professional services among the fifty states and the District of Columbia.

The average annual growth rate of statewide establishment employment since 2007 comes to .11 percent, far below the national average. Jobs in services like retail, publishing, telecommunications, finance and real estate do poorly in the national economy, but they lag even more in Ohio. For those in Ohio with high school degree skills the options are few.

The limited number of service sectors generating a net increase of jobs significantly lowers prospects for statewide job growth. It guarantees that health care employment must grow for Ohio to have a statewide increase of jobs. Computer design and related service jobs in Ohio have 1 percent of statewide employment, up from .8 percent in 2007, but still only 59 thousand jobs. Computer design and related services have 1.5 percent of national employment. Otherwise restaurants will have to provide thousands of new jobs a year to maintain even modest job growth

The idea people can finish high school and find career employment or self-supporting work breaks down day by day while business has started complaining of labor shortages. Politicians suggest a few bromides, but they offer nothing to solve the dismal record of Ohio jobs.


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Note (1) All job and employment number citations are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor, Current Employment Survey. No exceptions.


Saturday, July 1, 2017

The Pathetic Case of Oklahoma Jobs

The Pathetic Case of Oklahoma Jobs

Oklahoma establishment employment reached a monthly average high of 1,677.8 million in 2015, but dropped to 1.652 million jobs in 2016. The annual rate of growth rate since 1990 is 1.2 percent, not great but not bad compared to the national average and other states. From 2000 to 2016 the annual rate of growth dropped to .59 percent, a fifty percent decline. Oklahoma jobs declined during both of the Bush recessions, which came after the first quarter of 2001 and the second recession after the third quarter of 2008. Jobs have recovered but it was 2013 before Oklahoma jobs reached their 2008 level.

Every county in Oklahoma voted for Trump. Since Trump promised jobs that might be one reason. While he has yet to follow through with any more than talk, the problem with Oklahoma jobs shows up in the most glaring fashion over the last four years from 2012 to 2016. Over those four years monthly establishment employment was up a grand total of 38 thousand jobs at a .58 percent growth rate. Downright pitiful.


Goods Production

Goods production includes mining and mining related jobs like oil drilling, construction and manufacturing. Mining had its largest employment in 2014 with 62.1 thousand jobs, but it was still less than 2 percent of statewide establishment employment. It dropped to 44 thousand in 2016. Construction added 7 thousand jobs from 2012 to 2016 while manufacturing employment dropped 7 thousand canceling the construction gains.

To be fair the decline in goods production employment over the last four years comes as part of a long term trend of more than two decades. Since 1990 goods production lost 4.3 percent of statewide employment; since 2000 it lost 2.5 percent. However the entire 2.5 percent loss came in the four years, 2012 to 2016.


The Service Industries with a net job loss from 2012 to 2016

Important parts of the Oklahoma service industry, representing slightly more than 30 percent of statewide employment, did poorly. Service industries did have a few more jobs, although a few services lost jobs over the four year period. The information services lost a thousand jobs. It has publishing including software and Internet publishing, broadcasting, telecommunications, data processing and a few more. The total of Oklahoma financial activities including banking, credit and real estate services added just one thousand jobs.

The combination of professional and business support services had a net increase of a 1 thousand jobs, an especially poor performance for a sector with just over 11 percent of statewide employment in 2012. Professional services has law firms, accounting firms, architecture and engineering firms, computer design and relation services, management and technical consulting services, advertising and related services, but these services added only 3 thousand jobs, which were offset by a loss of two thousand jobs in business support services. Professional services need people with college degree skills, but Oklahoma College graduates will have to leave Oklahoma to find these jobs.

The worst failure to create jobs comes with health care. Over the four year period 2012 to 2016 Oklahoma health care employment increased at an annual growth of .85 percent, when the national average over the same four years was 2.36 percent. Total health care job growth over the four years comes to just 7 thousand new jobs. Slightly less than half the jobs came in services that actually provide patient care: physicians services, outpatient care, hospital services, and nursing and nursing home care. The other half came in social assistance jobs mostly non-profit family services, community food and housing and emergency relief services.

If we combine the 15.1 percent of statewide employment in goods production jobs with the 31.5 percent of statewide jobs in information services, financial activities, business and professional services, private education and health care we have a combined loss of 7 thousand jobs for 46.6 percent of statewide employment.


The Service Industries with a net job gain from 2012 to 2016

The remaining 53.4 percent of statewide employment comes in wholesale and retail trade, leisure and hospitality, repair and maintenance services, personal services, non-profit associations, and government. Wholesale trade was up only a thousand jobs, but retail trade did well among services with 11 thousand new jobs. Transportation and warehousing added 5 thousand new jobs, but modal transportation did poorly: airlines lost a thousand jobs, trucking added only a thousand jobs.

Leisure and hospitality added 17 thousand jobs with 13.3 thousand of these jobs at full service and fast food restaurants. The highest annual growth rate in jobs for any Oklahoma industry over the four years came in full service restaurants: 2.63 percent, more than four times the statewide growth rate.

Repair and maintenance services, and personal services had no new jobs over the four years. Non-profit associations added a little over 4 thousand jobs and government had a net increase of 6.5 thousand jobs. It was a net increase because federal and state government jobs declined while local government employment was up almost 8 thousand job over the four years.


Reality Check

Oklahoma ranks 45th in statewide job growth over the four years 2012 to 2016. While the monthly average increase was only 38 thousand jobs, the two metropolitan areas, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, had 53 thousand new jobs over the four years. That means the rural areas that make up the balance of state employment lost 15 thousand jobs. All of the 7 thousand new health care jobs were in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the net change in health care in the rural balance of state was zero.

The state legislature has apparently cut state income taxes along with corresponding cuts in services, especially education. Nothing assures Oklahoma residents will return their tax cut to the Oklahoma economy; the poor job performance suggests these funds left the state. The state legislature also had the opportunity to bring in federal dollars with Medicaid expansion offered during the Obama administration. Additional health care spending would create jobs and health services for state residents, especially the rural poor, but the legislature threw them away. Oil exploration creates less than 2 percent of statewide jobs for the environmental dangers it creates.

Just over 45 percent of new jobs over the last four years came in Leisure and hospitality and almost 80 percent of those jobs came in restaurant occupations such as cooks, waiters, waitresses, and combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food. The later occupation, food preparation and serving workers, has the highest employment of all restaurant and food preparation jobs in the state of Oklahoma, 34,520. That is up from 28,650 in 2012, which equals a 4.77 percent annual rate of growth compared to the .58 percent rate for statewide employment mentioned above. These jobs have a median wage in Oklahoma of $18,080 as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its Occupational Employment files. It is the lowest median wage of 710 occupations reported for the state of Oklahoma; dead last.

Enough said.