Jobs - An Economic Benefit of an Educated Population?

Yesterday, Blaine sent me a CNBC story listing the easiest and hardest cities in which to find a job as reported by the online job search firm Juju (http://www.cnbc.com/id/34620027/).  As I scrolled through the top ten best and worst cities (Orlando is listed as the tenth worst with 8.92 unemployed individuals per advertised job - Detroit is the worst at 20.76 unemployed individuals per advertised job), it occurred to me that the best cities (DC, San Jose, Baltimore, Boston, NYC) seemed to track closely with higher educational attainment levels, in data that was recently published by The Brookings Institution in its State of Metropolitan America report (http://www.brookings.edu/metro/StateOfMetroAmerica.aspx).  So, I decided to do a quick plot of the top ten best and worst cities to find a job against those cities' respective educational attainment levels as represented by the percentage of their age 25+ populations holding graduate degrees, which looks like this:

As I had suspected, all but two of the best job markets (again, measured by unemployed individuals per advertised job) ranked in the top 20 metros for graduate degree attainment; Salt Lake City (6th best job market) checked in at 39th and San Antonio (10th best job market) checked in at 77th).  In a similar vein, none of the ten worst job markets ranked higher than 36th (St. Louis) in graduate degree attainment, with Orlando (80th), Las Vegas (91st), and Riverside (93rd) all residing toward the bottom of the ranking.  (Unfortunately, it doesn't seem possible to do a direct comparison across the largest 100 metro markets, as Juju only tracks the top 50.)

So, what does this plot mean?  It seems clear that well-educated communities are faring better in today's economy; either they have less unemployed people, more job opportunities, or both.  Is this a function of the types of industries located in those communities; industries that perhaps rely on educated people?  Or is this a function of those communities attracting smart people to their environs who then create job opportunities for themselves and those around them?

Whatever the case, I suspect that having a highly-educated workforce will remain a competitive advantage, even as the general U.S. economic environment improves.  What do you think?

Struggling With Sunshine In The Sunshine State

Some interesting commentary today by St. Pete Times columnist Robert Trigaux regarding Florida's commitment at the state level to renewable energy (http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/lack-of-state-leadership-kills-tecos-big-solar-plant-project/1099525).  Basically, Trigaux describes the continued failure of the Florida Legislature and the Governor to deliver renewable energy legislation that would require (and subsidize) major utilities in the state to diversify their energy sources by using renewable energy sources such as solar.  As such, Trigaux reports that a significant TECO energy-led solar project is now dead, and he calls into question this state's ability to attract additional solar opportunities given the lack of state leadership on this issue.

Here in central Florida, as detailed in yesterday's Florida Today (http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100602/BUSINESS/6020327/1006/NEWS01/Intersil+donation+enables+UCF+solar+energy+research), our economic development folks are working on a "major project" that would leverage the University of Central Florida's solar energy research capabilities and create hundreds of new jobs related to the solar industry in our area.  Let's hope our state leaders can come together and make sure that Florida has a renewable energy policy that can support this project...it seems to be more urgent than ever...