In economic development, the concept of industry clusters is widely understood and measured. Companies tend to group together based on a region’s talent pool, infrastructure, and geographic location to form clusters of similar business activity. Businesses within the same industry cluster form an economic ecosystem that simultaneously boosts employment for the region and brings in fresh dollars from outside of a region. A similar but less discussed concept, however, exists with occupational clusters.

While industry clusters describe the industries and companies present in a region, occupation clusters go a level further to help define the actual work being performed. Occupation clusters reveal the skills of local talent and hint at trends impacting the future of work.

The chart below shows the change in job growth for the RCAs largest occupation clusters (clusters where total employment represents more than one percent of all jobs). Almost every occupation group expanded between 2016 and 2021. Logistics was the fastest growing cluster, expanding 22 percent (+5,500 jobs) in the five-year period to reach employment levels of 30,500. Agriculture was the only group to lose jobs (-130) to reach employment levels of 7,300.

Similar trends played out in individual RCA counties. The table below shows the fastest growing and declining clusters from 2016-2021. Clusters must make up at least one percent of total county employment to be included in the table.

Five of the seven counties with at least one declining cluster experienced significant decreases in agriculture jobs. This is consistent with broader national trends. The Bureau of Labor Statistics

Logistics and Computer jobs were often the fastest growing, a sign that these types of positions have become important across industries as businesses transition to more e-commerce sales and consumers demand faster delivery times.

Overall, the Rural Capital Area experienced broad occupation growth in the last five years, consistent with national trends considering where the future of work is headed. As shown above, changes in occupation clusters can be a signal of corporate consolidation, national demographic shifts, and trends in consumer demand that might be missed analyzing industry clusters alone.