Trendsights Newsletter
| Show Me Strong: Missouri's Recovery Plans Missouri’s Show Me Strong Recovery Plan is based on four guiding principles: expanding testing capacity, expanding reserves of personal protective equipment (PPE), monitoring health care system capacity, and improving the ability to predict potential outbreaks in the state. Visit this website for guidelines, resources and frequently asked questions for businesses, communities and citizens as part of the strategic reopening of the economy. |
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| Missouri and Regional Real-Time Labor Market Summaries Missouri employers posted 173,074 job ads from January through March with 72% for full-time positions. St. Louis had the most job postings numbering 83,839. Click on the above link to see the summaries for the state and each region. |
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| Occupational Handbook: Wholesale and Manufacturing Sales Representatives Wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives sell goods for wholesalers or manufacturers to businesses, government agencies, and other organizations. Missouri Average Annual wages for this occupation is $65,640. Click on the above link to learn more about this in-demand occupation. |
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| C2ER Moves Annual Conference to Virtual Format C2ER and the LMI Institute is moving their annual conference to a virtual format. Their Annual conference will provide new data tools, professional networking, and the latest information to help respond to the COVID-19 impacts on local economies and communities. |
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| Regional MERIC Liason Contacts The Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC) is the economic research and data section within the Missouri Department of Higher Education & Workforce Development’s Office of Performance & Strategy. We provide innovative analyses and assistance to policymakers and the public, including studies of the state's economic trends, targeted industries, and labor markets. Click on the above link to find your Regional Liason. |
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| Companies Retool Operations to Assist in Coronavirus Fight As the pandemic puts nations on wartime footing, distillers concoct hand sanitizer, a car maker offers to assemble ventilators, a jeans factory switches to face masks. As businesses adapt and work to keep Missourians safe and healthy, several companies are hiring new workers. |
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| Occupational Outlook: Registered Nurses Registered nurses (RNs) provide and coordinate patient care and educate patients and the public about various health conditions. Registered nurses work in hospitals, physicians’ offices, home healthcare services, and nursing care facilities. Others work in outpatient clinics and schools. In Missouri, the annual average wages for Registered Nurses is $65,130. |
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| Missouri Seeks Health Care Workers As the State of Missouri continues to respond to the spread of COVID-19, a request has gone out for health care students, graduates, or any active members or retirees of the health care workforce to be a part of the Missouri Disaster Medical Assistance Team (MO DMAT-1). The Department of Public Safety created a web portal that allows Missourians to register and participate in MO DMAT-1. Individuals with backgrounds in the fields of medicine, nursing, allied health professions, dentistry, counseling, mental/behavioral health, and laboratory science are most essential to this team. |
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| Short-term Industry Projections 2019-2020 Historic industry employment trends and other factors are analyzed to project future industry employment. Industry staffing patterns are then used to estimate occupational employment projections. Short-term Industry Projections are now available for Missouri and the Kansas City, and St. Louis regions. Click on the above link to access the Excel files. |
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| Census 2020 Surveys Now Due The 2020 Census is in progress! You can respond online, by phone, or by mail. Census results help determine how billions of dollars in federal funding flow into states and communities each year. The U.S. Census Bureau is bound by law to protect your answers and keep them strictly confidential. Responses are used to produce statistics used by researchers and policymakers. If you haven't completed your Census survey click on the link above for more information. |
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| Now Available: SOC Codes for CISA Critical Infrastructure Workers Over 80 million U.S. workers are employed in the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce battling COVID-19 based on a new research resource from the Labor Market Information (LMI) Institute and the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER). In an effort to help workforce and labor market information professionals, as well as other state, community and economic researchers, the LMI Institute and C2ER has produced the following list of Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) codes connected to critical infrastructure and essential industries. |
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| Covid19 COVID-19 Efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have impacted people and industries throughout Missouri and across the country. Employers and workers can find important information and resources to navigate this unprecedented time at https://jobs.mo.gov/covid-19-resources. Missouri Job Centers are closed to the public, but staff are assisting customers over the phone and online. This week, Job Center staff answered 3,000 calls per day, and diverted 2,000 calls per day from the UI call center. Staff are hosting virtual employment transition and hiring events and helping job seekers complete applications. |
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| Closing the Digital Skills Gap In Missouri, Computer and IT occupations are projected to grow 18% from 2016 to 2026, much faster than most other occupations according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some of these occupations require four-year degrees, however many are also occupations which fall in the category of middle-skill occupations. Apprenticeships can often help the job seeker find employment and training in these middle-skill occupations that require education beyond high school but do not necessarily require a four-year college degree. Click on the above link to read more about methods in obtaining training in these middle-skill occupations. |
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| Missouri is 2nd in the Nation for Registered Apprenticeships Registered Apprenticeships are an employer-driven training model that has many benefits for employers and workers. After completing a Registered Apprenticeship, the apprentice receives a nationally-recognized occupational credential that communicates the standards and high level of training that their employer provides. Click on the above link to learn more about Missouri Apprenticeships. |
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| BLS Occupational Handbook: Construction Managers The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently highlighted the occupation, Construction Managers. They plan, coordinate, budget, and supervise construction projects from start to finish. Many construction managers have a main office, but spend most of their time working out of a field office at a construction site, where they monitor the project and make daily decisions about construction activities. The Missouri Construction Industry is projected to grow 13% from 2016 to 2026, adding 15,800 workers to a projected 136,358. The average wage for a Construction Manager in Missouri for 2018 was $96,680. |
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| Working from Home: More Americans Are Telecommuting Telecommuting has risen in recent decades from 0.7% of full-time employees in 1980 to 3% in 2017. The average worker who telecommutes drove more miles annually than the average worker who has to travel to a workplace. The impact of this growth in telecommuting could have many potential impacts on the economy, including effects on traffic congestion and where households choose to locate. |
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| Population Data Series: Many Languages of Missouri Approximately 94 percent of Missouri residents speak English only. The remaining 6 percent can be broken down into two groups, residents whose primary language is something other than English but are fluent in English, and residents that have a limited proficiency with the English language. Click on the above link to learn more about the languages spoken in Missouri. |
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| IRS Migration Data is Available at the Missouri Data Center The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released migration data that shows the movement of households and families in and out of states and counties. Did you know Missouri receives the most residents from neighboring Kansas and Illinois, followed by Texas, Florida, and California? Another fun fact is that more people from other states move into Clay County than from within Missouri. |
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| St. Louis Federal Reserve Research: Shifting Dynamics in Eighth District Cities The St. Louis Fed’s Center for Household Financial Stability took an in-depth look at four Eighth District cities (St. Louis, Missouri, Little Rock, Arkansas, Louisville, Kentucky, and Memphis, Tennessee) to explore how demographic dynamics are shifting. An increased share of the population responded that they were college graduates who had moved into the county in the past year, indicating that St. Louis may be attracting more college graduates than in the recent past. |
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| Missouri Real-Time Labor Market Summary Missouri employers posted 164,169 job ads in the last 3 months with 70% of these full-time positions. St. Louis had the most job postings during this time at 77,296. Click on the above link to see Missouri summary. |
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| MERIC’s Valentine’s Day Facts and Figures Valentines spending is predicted to rise according to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) 2020 Valentine’s Day Consumer Survey conducted by Prosper Insights and Analytics. Spending in the nation is expected to total $27.4 billion, up 32 percent from last year’s record $20.7 billion. Consumers are planning to spend an average of $196.31 this year. According to the NRF, this Valentine’s Day couples are eager to shower their loved ones, including their other important relationships, with special gifts. Items like jewelry, candy or flowers remain popular with consumers.To celebrate this holiday, MERIC has put together some fun facts and figures to share with you. |
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| 2019 Annual Average Cost of Living Missouri had the 5th lowest cost of living in the United States for 2019. In general, the most expensive areas to live were Hawaii, Alaska, the Northeast, and the West Coast. The least expensive areas were the Midwest and Southern states. MERIC derives the cost of living index for each state by averaging the indices of participating cities and metropolitan areas in that state. Missouri’s cost of living index for 2019 was 88.5. |
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| Missouri Business index Increases Missouri’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for January was 56.2, an increase of 5.6 points, and well in expansion territory, according to the monthly Mid-America Business Conditions Survey, conducted by Creighton University, Omaha, NE. Economists consider the index, which measures such factors as new orders, production, supplier delivery times, backlogs, inventories, prices, employment, import orders and exports, a key economic indicator. Typically, a score greater than 50 indicates an expansionary economy while a score below 50 forecasts a sluggish economy. The January PMI® for the national manufacturing sector registered 50.9, increasing 3.1 points from the December reading of 47.8 percent. |
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| Career Outlook: Respiratory Therapists Respiratory therapists care for patients who have trouble breathing—for example, from a chronic respiratory disease, such as asthma or emphysema. Their patients range from premature infants with undeveloped lungs to elderly patients who have diseased lungs. Did you know that in Missouri a Respiratory Therapist is one of the fastest growing Middle-skill occupations earning an average wage of $54,760? Click on the above link to learn more about this occupation. |