The United States is made up of an incredible array of unique
landscapes, climates and cultures. It stands to reason that regional
economies exhibit a similarly expansive variety. An industry that is a
major economic driver in one state may be almost nonexistent just a few
states away. So how can you tell which jobs are the most unique to your
home state?
One way is using a metric called location quotient, which is a
measurement of job concentration. This is found by taking the percentage
share of a state's workforce working in a given occupation and
comparing it to the percentage share of the national workforce in that
same occupation.
Put another way, LQ asks, "What percentage of workers in Texas are
petroleum engineers?" then asks "What percentage of U.S. workers are
Petroleum engineers?" and compares the two answers.
A LQ of 1.0 means that the occupation is exactly as concentrated in the
state as it is at the national level. The higher the LQ, the more unique
the job is to that state. Going back to the example above, the LQ for
petroleum engineers in Texas is 6.39, indicating that petroleum engineer
jobs are more than six times more common in Texas than they are in the
country as a whole.
Industries and occupations that are more concentrated in one area are
often a good indicator of what drives the economy in that region. In
turn, this can shed light on career opportunities that may not be
available in other parts of the country.
The following map, released by CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. and designed by mental_floss magazine, uses LQ to reveal the most unique jobs in each state through 2013.
CareerBuilder
The following table provides a more in-depth look at the data behind the map.
