The geography of jobs

What is the state of unemployment in the United States? There could be some good news on the horizon. A Labor Department report says unemployment dropped in 28 states last month. But it isn't all good news on the job front as unemployment rose in 11 states and remained unchanged in 11 states. The West had the highest regional unemployment rate in October with 7.8%. The region with the lowest rate? The South, at 6.9%. 

Enrico Moretti, author of “The New Geography of Jobs,” says that Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, Raleigh, Boston and Washington, D.C. are among the cities doing particularly well for job growth. “They all have a highly educated labor force and attract highly innovative employers.” Moretti gives credit to the natural gas industry for sustaining employment in places such as North Dakota, parts of Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana. He cautions, however, that long term prospects for these energy rich states is uncertain. “Every time there’s an oil boom, the country booms. But when prices go down, jobs are lost.”

Moretti also believes that although some places have always been more prosperous than others, these differences have increased more rapidly over the last 30 years as patents for new technologies have concentrated in two to three dozen communities that he identifies as “brain hubs” or “innovation clusters.” In these clusters, highly specialized innovation workers, such as engineers and designers, generate about three times as many local jobs for service workers ― such as doctors, carpenters, and waitresses ― as do manufacturing workers. 

Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, a map of over-the-year change in unemployment rates for states.