Using the most recent data available, this Boston/Metro North Regional labor market profile provides a detailed picture of the region’s current and future labor supply. For context, it also provides detailed information on labor demand in the region over the past decade. This profile is designed to help guide workforce development professionals, policy makers, and civic, education, and business leaders as they make decisions about education and training opportunities.

Executive Summary

Using the most recent data available, this Boston/ Metro North Regional labor market profile provides a detailed picture of the region’s current and future labor supply. For context, it also provides detailed information on labor demand in the region over the past decade. This profile is designed to help guide workforce development professionals, policy makers, and civic, education, and business leaders as they make decisions about education and training opportunities.

The charts and analysis are divided into three sections:

1. Labor Supply: Demographic Trends of Residents Who Live in Boston/Metro North
2. Labor Demand: Employment Trends of Jobs and Workers in Boston/Metro North
3. The Pipeline: Educational Supply of Post- Secondary Degrees Granted by Institutions Located in Boston/Metro North

The past decade has been challenging for the Boston/Metro North labor market. After two recessions and a decade of declining employment, the region is now gaining jobs and recovering at a modest pace. However, the recovery from the Great Recession has been somewhat slower in Boston/Metro North than in the state as a whole. The labor market recovery in the region and state are being driven by most of the same industries, such as Professional & Business Services and Education & Health Services. The concentration of highly educated employees within these industries is also benefiting the region. In fact, Boston/Metro North workers tend to have higher educational attainment than their statewide counterparts in nearly all industries and occupations. And there is still demand for highly educated workers, as job vacancies in the region tend to be most common among occupations where workers have higher levels of post-secondary education. But Boston/Metro North employment concentrations in fields that are recovering slowly, such as Financial Activities, are weighing down the region’s recovery.

Both the residents of Boston/Metro North and its workforce (which includes people who commute from other regions and other states) have remarkably high levels of education. Massachusetts is one of the states with the most highly educated populations; the education levels of the residents of Boston/Metro North are even higher. The share of working-age people living in Boston/Metro North who had a Bachelor’s Degree or higher continued to increase over the last decade, and exceeded 40 percent by 2008-2010 compared with 35.6 percent of Massachusetts residents. But the region also has smaller shares of workers with Some College education or an Associate’s Degree than does Massachusetts, making the overall share of residents and workers with a post-secondary education fairly similar to the state. Boston/ Metro North also has a considerable number of residents at the lower end of the education distribution. In particular, the region has a larger share of the working-age and civilian labor force with less than a high school education than does Massachusetts. Given that those with lower educational attainment tend to be disproportionately represented among the unemployed, it is likely that education and training opportunities would benefit such residents in this high-skilled regional economy.

A major advantage for Boston/Metro North is the large share of young residents and workers in the region. While most regions in the state face the demographic challenges of an aging population and potential shortfalls in workers with required educational levels, Boston/Metro North has a larger concentration of residents and workers under the age of 35 than any other region. In 2008-2010, 45 percent of the region’s civilian labor force was under 35. The younger groups in the region also tend to be well-educated, with a large number having a Bachelor’s Degree or higher. This mitigates some of the concerns facing other regions with older labor forces, but the concentration of younger workers in higher educational attainment groups in Boston/Metro North may result in potential shortages of workers with lower or middle education levels. For example, the number of residents and workers in Boston/Metro North with an Associate’s Degree declined over the last decade. This decline partly reflects the transition to higher levels of educational attainment for residents and employees, but it also signals a potential shortage of workers as baby boomers retire from occupations where an Associate’s Degree is the norm. Because the region is a major destination for commuters and a net importer of workers, some of these workforce challenges can be addressed by attracting people to commute into the region.

To foster strong economic growth in the future, Boston/Metro North may want to further align the education of its labor force to meet the needs of the region’s employers. The higher education institutions in the region can play a key role in meeting the increasing demand for workers with post-secondary degrees. National and state enrollment patterns indicate that more and more individuals have been seeking post-secondary education over the last decade, and Boston/Metro North has seen an increase in full-time enrollments at both less-than-twoyear and four-year institutions. Part-time en rollments at the region’s two-year institutions have also been rising in recent years; however, full time enrollments at these institutions have been declining.

In terms of the number of students actually completing post-secondary degrees, the institutions in the region have, as a whole, trailed the growth patterns of Massachusetts and the United States. The slowest growth in the past decade occurred among Associate’s Degrees, making it the type of post-secondary education with the fewest graduates in the region.

Boston/Metro North has seen growth in a variety of areas of study for each degree type. In particular, Health Science certificates and degrees have become an increasingly popular field of study, potentially reflecting the strength of the industry in the region and the industry’s consistent job growth throughout the decade.

Geography of the Regional Labor Markets

The Boston/Metro North labor market borders three regional labor markets: Metro South/West, Northeast, and Southeast. It is composed of 21 Massachusetts cities and towns in Suffolk and Middlesex counties. Along with the state’s capital and most populous city, Boston, the region contains a number of large cities and towns, including: Cambridge, Somerville, Malden, Medford, Revere, Arlington, and Woburn. Because of data limitations, in certain aspects of our analysis (such as the vacancy analysis and industry/occupational distributions), Boston/Metro North is combined with Metro South/ West and is referred to as the Greater Boston region. See the Geographic Definition Appendix for further details.

Employment Trends and Recessions

Massachusetts reached peak employment in 2001 and remained 5.0 percent below its peak (meaning a loss of 169,800 jobs) at the end of 2011. Over the same time period, total employment in the United States ended at only 0.4 percent (513,700 jobs) below its 2001 peak. One reason for the difference was that the short national recession at the beginning of the decade created a prolonged contraction and slow recovery in Massachusetts. By the start of the Great Recession, Massachusetts had still not recovered all of the jobs it had lost during the previous downturn. In contrast, the nation experienced a shorter labor market contraction in 2001, followed by a strong recovery that expanded employment up until the Great Recession. The Great Recession impacted the nation severely, while Massachusetts experienced a less pronounced downturn, with a slightly stronger recovery through 2010 followed by slower employment growth in 2011.

These differences between Massachusetts and the United States over the economic cycles are important to keep in mind when evaluating the performance of the eight regional labor markets. When possible, these labor market profiles will look at labor market information for the beginning of the millennium, the period preceding the Great Recession, and the decline in and recovery from the Great Recession.

Measuring Labor Supply
Demographic Trends of Residents Who Live in Boston/Metro North

• Population Growth Trends
• Demographic Characteristics of the Resident Population of Boston/Metro North
• Growth in the Working-Age Population by Nativity Status
• Growth in the Civilian Labor Force by Nativity Status
• The Age Profile of the Working-Age Population
• The Age Profile of the Civilian Labor Force
• Educational Attainment of the Working-Age Population
• Educational Attainment of the Civilian Labor Force
• Educational Attainment by Age Group
• Unemployment Rate Trends
• The Unemployed: Age Distribution (2000 and 2008-2010)
• The Unemployed: Educational Attainment (2000 and 2008-2010)
• Commuting Patterns of Residents and Workers: Boston/Metro North (2008-2010)

Measuring Labor Demand
Employment Trends of Jobs and Workers in Boston/Metro North

• Employment Trends
• Demographic Characteristics of the Population Employed in Boston/Metro North
• Distribution of Employment by Supersector (Q4 2010)
• Changes in Employment During the Economic Downturn by Major Industry: Boston/Metro North
• Changes in Employment During the Economic Downturn by Major Industry: Massachusetts
• Industries Driving the Recovery: Boston/Metro North
• Industries Driving the Recovery: Massachusetts
• Educational Attainment of Employees by Major Industry in Boston/Metro North (2008-2010)
• Educational Attainment of Employees by Major Industry in Massachusetts (2008-2010)
• Employment by Major Occupation: Boston/Metro North (2008-2010)
• Employment by Major Occupation: Massachusetts (2008-2010)
• Distribution of Occupations Across Supersectors in Greater Boston (2008-2010)
• Distribution of Occupations Within Supersectors in Greater Boston (2008-2010)
• Educational Attainment of Employees by Major Occupation in Boston/Metro North (2000)
• Educational Attainment of Employees by Major Occpation in Boston/Metro North (2008-2010)
• Educational Attainment of Employees by Major Occupation in Massachusetts (2008-2010)
• Job Vacancies in the Great Recession and Recovery
• Job Vacancies and Vacancy Rates by Major Occupation in Greater Boston (Q4 2010)
• Job Vacancies and Vacancy Rates by Major Occupation in Massachusetts (Q4 2010)
• Comparing Vacancy Rates and Educational Attainment: Peak Labor Market
• Comparing Vacancy Rates and Educational Attainment: Recovering Labor Market

Measuring the Pipeline
Educational Supply from Post-Secondary Degrees Granted by Institutions Located in Boston/Metro North

• Growth in Potential Supply of Educated Workers: Full-Time Enrollment Trends in the Past Decade
• Number of Full-Time Enrollees by Type of Degree Granting Institution in Boston/Metro North (2000-2010)
• Growth in Potential Supply of Educated Workers: Part-Time Enrollment Trends in the Past Decade
• Number of Part-Time Enrollees by Type of Degree Granting Institution in Boston/Metro North (2000-2010)
• Graduation Rates by Type of Degree (2009)
• Crossing the Finish Line: Trends in Degree Completions Over the Past Decade (2000-2010)
• Educational Institutions Awarding the Most Degrees in Boston/Metro North (2010)
• Number of Degree Completions by Degree Type: Boston/Metro North (2000-2010)
• Certificates Awarded by Major Field of Study (2000-2010)
• Annual Completions by Top Five Certificate Majors in Boston/Metro North (2000-2010)
• Associate’s Degrees Awarded by Major Field of Study (2000-2010)
• Annual Completions by Top Five Associate’s Degree Majors in Boston/Metro North (2000-2010)
• Bachelor’s Degrees Awarded by Major Field of Study (2000-2010)
• Annual Completions by Top Five Bachelor’s Degree Majors in Boston/Metro North (2000-2010)

• Data
• Geographic Data
• Geographic Definitions
• Methodology