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The Changing Louisville Economy
With the rapid advancement of modern technology, globalization, and new ideas, the American economy has undergone a gradual but substanial change over the past several decades. The number and percentage of Americans enrolled in college or holding a college degree is at an all-time high, and this figure continues to grow at a rapid pace. Many companies have sent jobs formerly held by Americans "off-shore," taking advantage of cheaper labor costs and advancements in transportation technology to raise profits. A new understanding of our environment and medical technology have spurred investment in areas once underutilized, creating jobs today that didn't exist in the "old economy."
While Louisville's economy has historically been more insulated from national trends, gradual changes have been occuring.
Below are two charts showing the makeup of the Louisville economy's job sectors as a percent of the total. The first one shows the makeup of the ten major job sectors in January 1990, and the other the percent makeup twenty years later, in March of 2010:
(Click each chart for a larger view.)
Here, we can see that several sectors of the Louisville MSA economy are growing as a percent of the total number of jobs, while others are shrinking in their proportion of the total. Professional and Business Services and Education and Health Services have sharply increased their proportion of the total Louisville job market over the two decades, while Government, Financial Activities, and Leisure and Hospitality increased slightly as a percent of the total. Manufacturing, Trade, Transportation, and Utilities, and Other Services decreased in their overall importance to the local economy in the past twenty years.
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