by
David J. Peters
dpeters@ded.state.mo.us
This analysis has provided indicators of the national competitiveness of a region's occupational base in the finance, insurance and real estate industries in the central Midwest. Occupational similarity can be used by economic developers and policy officials in two ways. First, ranking the similarity scores within a region provides a form of industry targeting that indicates which industries are best suited to the occupational base in the region. Second, industries with high dissimilarity are identified so that programs can be developed which strengthen the labor force in the region in order to make the area more attractive to selected industries.
In general, the occupational base in most Missouri communities is highly dissimilar to most finance, insurance and real estate industries. However, Missouri has a small labor competitive advantage in deposit institutions, non-deposit credit institutions and securities and commodities firms. This indicates that many Missouri communities do not have the needed labor required to support these industries. Therefore, communities can use this information to craft education and training programs to develop specific segments of the labor force.
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