Workforce demographics, site selection labor reports by Workforce Strategies, Inc.

Getting Started: Using the Geo-Skills Demographics

Geo-skill demographics supplement all other employment and training related information. The higher the skill concentration the more significant a skill is to local industry and job performance and, therefore, to the local workforce and economy.

Playing a significant role in the workforce infrastructure, skills are important local human capital assets. They are the commodity of exchange in the labor market. The power of these demographics lies in understanding what they mean and learning how to effectively use them at the local level. All of the 35 skills work as a composite and together in a local economy and industry base. Skills are highly transferable across industries, occupations, and workplaces.

Some of the largest real estate companies use the geo-skill demographics in their own market analysis and for site selection. Workforce Strategies consults in the practical application and use of the geo-skills to your current project.

Get started by profiling a geographic location and see which skills have the highest concentration. Do this by looking at the number, percent, and concentration values for each skill. Skill concentration indicates importance. Every location relies on skills to meet local economic needs. Every location has a group of skills that are significant to build upon. Learn which skills are most significant to a location. Take a serious look at the location’s overall Workforce Preparation indicator.

Site Selection: There are certain skills that drive and support certain industries. This is so for all industries. For example, among other skills, social skills are important call centers. No matter what kind of site you are looking at, whether for high tech, bioscience, finance, manufacturing, retail, logistics, or whatever - when making location based decisions – cut to the chaste and compare local skill concentration. Discover the pockets of programming, math, quality control, science, negotiation, time management, financial resource management, writing, process control, speaking, and more. This kind of information helps site selectors look at the human capital infrastructure that a location offers as well as assists in figuring how it can sustain operations and help fortify them when growing. Contact us to learn what skills are the most important to specific industries, because this information will assist in narrowing your skill focus.

Community and Economic Development: Workforce skills build community viability and sustainability. Build your local workforce, commmunity and region around geo-skills. Promote your location's skill strengths. Use the skill demographics when discussing the local human capital infrastructure. Another way to effectively use the geo-skills’ demographic information is to look at other locations’ skill strengths. See what skills fortify other places and their industry base. Learn what skills help make those locations tick. Study the top skills in other locations and learn from their important skills strengths and, then, build upon what you learn. Also, look at skills in terms of industry sectors. Fortify your own significant skills around your local industry sectors.

Workforce Development: Although all the skills work as a composite for local industry, some skills are more important than others. Because local industry relies on certain skills, it is important to develop these local skills. This means: (a.) building training programs around it to fortify the skill in the community, (b.) letting employers know which skills are a valuable skill to their workplace, and (c.) when carving out a location’s economic niche promote this a particular skill as a positive human capital asset. Set some skill attainment goals and build strategies for strengthening the local human capital infrastructure.

Employee Recruitment: The geo-skills help to pinpoint critical recruitment locations. Contrary to what is thought, no matter the state of the economy – it is always difficult to find skills and occupation talent. And, there is ongoing projected need for many different kinds of skills, meaning that the country faces and will continue to face skill shortages. For example, it is difficult for the communications industry to find programming talent. For healthcare in some part of country - it is nursing talent, or in corporate communications strong writing skills are in demand. By looking at pockets of quality control analysis, financial management, science, writing, programming, and other geographic skills – recruitment can zero in on and target those places that have high concentration of the skills being sought. The geo-skill demographics look at the across the board skill base in a location. Therefore, geographic recruitment initiatives now include both occupation talent and skill distribution combined - because the geo-skill demographics bring the makeup of a location's human capital infrastructure to the forefront.

Getting Started: Using the Geo-Skills Demographics

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