In yesterday’s Daily Data Discussion we looked at markets around the country with the highest percentage of total employment in the education and health sector; today we’ll look at markets with the lowest percentage of total employment in this sector. 

A reminder from yesterday – don’t’ forget that when thinking about this sector in some markets with large universities and university health centers those employees are counted in this sector, though in some markets those same types of employees are counted in the government employee sector. 

We also received several comments regarding our comment that this sector is “recession-resistant” but not “recession-proof”.  The main thrust of the comments was that many school districts across the country are facing cutbacks due to shrinking tax revenue receipts.  We agree with this fact, though cutbacks in education employment have not been recorded to a large degree in BLS data thus far, and most school budgets for the current year were established prior to the worst news of the third quarter 2008. 

Education employment may very well decline with the next academic year, or communities will do what our intrepid local government does here in Bozeman – keep raising property taxes to cover a bloated school budget.  It will likely be yet another tax battleground in the future. 

Here are the markets in our database as of today with the lowest percentage of employees in the education and health sector (calculated as a percentage of total employment in the market) –

1)  Auburn, AL  6%
2)  Alexandria, LA 6.1%
3)  El Centro, CA 6.5%
4)  Las Vegas, NV 7.1%
5)  Tuscaloosa, AL 7.6%

Database Average: 14.9%
Database Median: 13.8%

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at markets with the largest multifamily rental rates increases in the past year. 

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