Analytics Magazine Analytics Magazine, March/April 2014 | Page 54

WH ERE T H E J O BS A R E Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Metropolitan Area Jobs   Rank Metropolitan Area Jobs New York, NY 2122   11 Raleigh, NC 220 San Francisco, CA 1330   12 San Diego, CA 214 Boston, MA 854   13 Houston, TX 202 Washington, DC 660   14 Minneapolis, MN 187 Seattle, WA 651   15 Columbus, OH 182 Los Angeles, CA 512   16 Chicago, IL 166 Dallas, TX 443   17 Richmond, VA 164 Atlanta, GA 394   18 Denver, CO 145 Austin, TX 308   19 Detroit, MI 130 Philadelphia, PA 253   20 Phoenix, AZ 127 Table 2: 20 metropolitan areas with the most analytics jobs. BIGGER ISN’T ALWAYS BETTER Table 2 shows the 20 PSAs with the greatest number of jobs. Not surprisingly, nine of the 10 largest metropolitan areas (indicated by gra yed-out text) are also included in this list. The “Top 10” accounted for 7,274 (or 73 percent of all) jobs, while the “Top 20” covered 6,264 (or 80 percent of all) jobs. Not surprisingly, the distribution of analytics jobs is skewed toward a small number of locations. Figure 1 shows a Pareto diagram of the first 50 (sorted by number of jobs) PSAs. Note that these locations account for 94 percent of all listed positions. We compute a “persons per job” metric in an attempt to determine which areas are “punching above their weight,” and identify smaller areas that have an unusually high (relative to their total 54 | A N A LY T I C S - M A G A Z I N E . O R G population) number of analytics jobs. This is computed by dividing the total population by the number of analytics job listings within the CSA. As shown in Table 3, Platteville, Wis., leads in this category with roughly one analytics job opening for every 800 people; keep in mind that this includes people of all ages, including children too young to work and retirees, not just those eligible for work. This compares to an overall average (for those areas with at least one advertised position) of one opening per 122,000 people. So, some areas are a more “target rich environment” than others for job hunters. While looking at some of these smaller areas that provide more “bang for the buck” (in terms of the number of analytics jobs relative to the population) may seem wise, W W W. I N F O R M S . O R G