Labor Market Trends in Massachusetts Regions: Southeast

A joint project of Commonwealth Corporation and the New England Public Policy Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

By Robert Clifford

October 17, 2012

Full profile (pdf) Presentation (pdf) more

Using the most recent data available, the Southeast 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.

Section 1: Overview

Executive Summary

The charts and analysis are divided into three sections:

Labor Supply: Demographic Trends of Residents Who Live in the Southeast Region
Labor Demand: Employment Trends of Jobs and Workers in the Southeast Region
The Pipeline: Educational Supply of Post- Secondary Degrees Granted by Institutions Located in the Southeast Region

The past decade has been challenging for the Southeast region’s labor market. After two Executive Summary 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 slow in the region, falling in the middle of the pack among regional labor markets and trailing statewide growth. While the recovery of the labor market is in its earliest stages, the region has had a varied employment situation, with strong growth in industries such as Retail Trade, Administrative & Support Services, and Other Services but declines in Professional & Technical Services, Financial Activities, and Wholesale Trade. In comparison, Massachusetts has had a broad-based recovery in its earliest stages, with fewer industries continuing to decline in employment and stronger employment gains in the industries that are recovering.

The Great Recession has also left the Southeast region with the highest unemployment rate among all regional labor markets. While the unemployment rate in the region was only slightly higher than the statewide rate through the first half of the past decade, the severity of the Great Recession resulted in Southeast’s unemployment rate increasing from 5.1 percent in 2007 to 9.8 percent in 2010. This was slightly above the national rate (9.6 percent) and far exceeding the statewide rate (8.5 percent), as well as all other regional labor markets. And while high unemployment has impacted all demographic groups, it has been disproportionally concentrated among the young and those with lower levels of education.

While Massachusetts is one of the most highly educated states in the nation, the residents and workforce (which include people who commute from other regions and other states) of the Southeast region tend to have lower levels of educational attainment and are more similar to their counterparts in the United States. Over the past decade, the region saw progressively higher levels of educational attainment among its residents and workforce, but a High School Degree continued to be the most common level of educational attainment. As of 2008-2010, 32.3 percent of the civilian labor force in the region had a Bachelor’s Degree or higher, which trailed the 41.2 percent in Massachusetts but was more than the national rate of 29.6 percent. The share of the region’s civilian labor force with some post-secondary education (62.6 percent) was closer to the share in Massachusetts (67.9 percent), due to the region’s strong concentrations of individuals with a Certificate or Associate’s Degree. However, the Southeast region also has a considerable number of residents at the lower end of the education distribution. Compared with the entire state, the region has a larger share of working-age residents and civilian labor force with a High School Degree or less. Given that those with lower educational attainment tend to be disproportionately represented among the unemployed, such residents could be an important source of labor—if educated and trained to meet the state and region’s growing demand for skilled workers.

Still, the region faces the demographic challenges of an aging population and potential shortfalls in workers with the educational levels required by employers. In 2008-2010, over 45 percent of the region’s civilian labor force was 45 years of age or older, while slightly over 30 percent were 34 or younger. This suggests that the region’s businesses may face a potential overall shortage of younger workers to replace baby boomers as they near retirement age. And while the region’s residents obtained progressively higher levels of education in the past decade, slower growth in those with Some College, an Associate’s Degree, or even a High School Degree has also contributed to the potential shortage in the number of younger residents and workers who can replace baby boomers as they retire. This trend may be particularly troublesome as the region is a net exporter of workers and may not be able to attract commuters from elsewhere to fill positions. However, people who are 34 years of age or younger represent nearly 45 percent of the region’s unemployed but account for only 30 percent of the region’s civilian labor force. As with those with lower levels of educational attainment, younger workers are disproportionately unemployed and may provide a supply of labor that can be educated and trained to address any potential labor shortages.

To foster strong economic growth in the future, the Southeast region may want to better align the education of its labor force to meet the demands of the region’s employers. The higher education institutions in the region can play a key role in influencing the future supply of workers with post-secondary degrees. This supply will be critical to help meet the demographic challenges posed by an aging workforce and the region’s increasing demand for educated workers. National and state enrollment patterns indicate that more individuals sought post-secondary education over the past decade. The Southeast region saw a similar trend, with increasing full-time and part-time enrollment at less-than-two-year and two-year institutions, and increasing full-time enrollment at four-year institutions. The region’s public twoand four-year institutions are the main drivers of enrollment at post-secondary institutions, with enrollment growth at public institutions exceeding both statewide and national trends over the past decade.

In terms of students completing post-secondary degrees, the institutions in the region have, as a whole, surpassed Massachusetts and come closer to the experience of the United States over the past decade. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of students completing Certificates, Associate’s Degrees, and Bachelor’s Degrees at institutions in the Southeast region grew faster than in Massachusetts, but only Certificate completions surpassed the national trend. Notably, a large share of the region’s post-secondary degrees was completed at public institutions, particularly Associate’s Degrees (81.8 percent) and Bachelor’s Degrees (60.5 percent). An overall increase in the number of degrees completed was reflected in strong growth in most major fields of study for each program and degree type, especially in recent years. In particular, the number of people earning Certificates, Associate’s Degrees, and Bachelor’s Degrees in Health Sciences increased toward the end of the decade, possibly a response to the state’s and region’s growth in the Health Care & Social Assistance industries through the economic downturn and recovery.

Geography of the Regional Labor Markets

The Southeast region’s labor market includes most of the Massachusetts border with Rhode Island and is also bordered by three regional labor markets: Boston/Metro North, Metro South/West, and Cape & Islands. It is composed of 56 Massachusetts cities and towns in Bristol, Norfolk, and Plymouth counties. Some of the larger cities and towns are New Bedford, Brockton, Quincy, Fall River, Plymouth, Taunton, and Weymouth. Because of data limitations, in certain aspects of this analysis, such as industry/ occupational distributions, the Southeast region is combined with Berkshire, Cape & Islands, Central Mass, Northeast, and Pioneer Valley and is referred to as the region Outside Greater Boston. See the on-line Geographic Definition Appendix for further details.

Alex Cronin/Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Employment Trends and Recessions

Massachusetts reached peak employment in 2001 and remained 5.0 percent below its peak (a loss of 169,800 jobs) at the end of 2011. Over the same period, total employment in the United States ended at only 0.4 percent below its 2001 peak (a loss of 513,700 jobs). 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 short 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 performances 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.

Section 2: Measuring labor supply

Demographic Trends of Residents Who Live in Southeast Region

Section 3: Measuring labor demand

Employment Trends of Jobs and Workers in Southeast Region

Section 4: Measuring educational supply

Educational Supply from Post-Secondary Degrees Granted by Institutions Located in Southeast Region

Section 5: Appendices

collapse all down

expand all

About the Authors

Robert Clifford

Resources

Site Topics

Monetary Policy & Economic Research

Labor Market Trends in Massachusetts Regions

Labor Market Trends in Massachusetts Regions: Southeast

A joint project of Commonwealth Corporation and the New England Public Policy Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston