This economic analysis will concentrate on three important industries- construction, manufacturing and healthcare. Between 1993 and 2013, there was a continuous increase in employment. This indicates that the sector was expanding and hence the need for additional labor. A similar trend is observed in manufacturing and healthcare sectors. However, an analysis of the nature of the trend in each sector reveals different results. In the construction sector, the overall employment change was 13.1. In the manufacturing sector, it was only 6.5 while it was highest in the healthcare sector at 17.5. These figures hypothesize that the healthcare sector had the highest growth in labor employment.
The growth in the healthcare sector is supported by recording the highest percentage change at 27%. This compares to construction and manufacturing sectors which recorded 18% and 12% growth rates respectively. This growth does not indicate an equivalent rate of growth in each of these sectors. This is because of the inherent dynamics in these sectors whereby different growth rates in labor may be witnessed from the same rate of growth on an overall basis (Friedman, 2009). In the healthcare sector, the analysis reveals that it is highly labor intensive. Despite the use of machines in diagnosis and surgery, complementary laboris needed. This is contrasted to the construction sector where a replacement of labor is high whenever a machine is applied in construction.
On the other hand, manufacturing is the most affected sector whereby capital use replaces labor to a high extent. In this case, automation of manufacturing processes leads to a scenario whereby a few individuals watch over the machines to ensure a smooth flow of manufacturing activities. Therefore, growth in labor usage, in the healthcare sector, may not necessarily mean that this sector had the highest growth rates (Poirson, 2000). This factor is brought to light by the regional shift share statistics. Construction and manufacturing sectors have positive figures of 7.746 and 12.589 respectively. The healthcare sector records a positive value of 7.661.
Despite topping in employment change between 2008 and 2013, the healthcare sector comes in a distant second after the manufacturing sector based on regional shift share. In addition, there is a change in pattern since it is the construction sector which records a lower statistic than the manufacturing sector. This data provides an economic implication that each sector had a different regional shift share that contrasts to its rate of labor growth. Therefore, each of these sectors had a different contribution to the growth in their corresponding sectors on a regional basis (Friedman, 2009).
The other set of data that gives an image of the economic picture is the percentage change in labor use versus the national growth share. The healthcare sector had the highest percentage followed by construction and manufacturing sectors respectively. As far as the national growth share is concerned, the construction sector had the highest figure at 73.779. It was followed by the healthcare sector at 68.175 and the manufacturing sector at 54.271.
The economic explanation is that the construction sector became the most competitive on a national basis owing to other production factors other than labor. In this region, the growth in labor was complemented by capital and efficiency in the sector. Therefore, it made a higher impact on the national growth than the other manufacturing and healthcare sectors. In conclusion, the manufacturing sector was the least lucrative since it recorded the lowest percentage change in labor at 12%. In addition, it had the least national growth share at 54.271 and a negative industry mix share at -8.059.
References
Friedman, D. (2009). An Economic Explanation of Punitive Damages. The New York Times , 49-52.
Poirson, H. (2000). Undestanding Economic Knowledge. IMF Working Paper No. 00/104, 62-65.
