Doctoral Education and the Academic Job Market in Planning: 2018-2019

This report presents the results from the second year of a planned three-year study on doctoral education and the academic job market in Planning. The Year 2 survey of doctoral programs indicates that programs graduated approximately 270 new PhDs in Planning or closely allied fields during the 2018-2019 academic year—an 8% decrease from the previous academic year. Programs report that approximately 66% of students enroll with aspirations for academic careers. Extrapolating from the survey data, this suggests that of the estimated 270 graduates during academic year 2018-2019, an estimated 179 preferred an academic position. Survey data indicates an estimated 111 graduates found academic positions following graduation. Put another way, approximately 62% of those graduates likely seeking an academic position found one. The number of new PhDs securing academic appointments roughly equals the number of academic positions open to new PhDs (105). However, a new question on the Year 2 survey suggests that job seekers encountered strong competition from faculty engaging in lateral moves. Supported by this and other evidence, we argue the 111 graduates securing academic positions are not filling the 105 identified as open to new PhDs plus six other unidentified positions; they are filling a smaller number of identified jobs and a larger number of jobs promoted outside the channels evaluated in this report. Job announcements through ACSP and Planners 2040 were up slightly (5.3%) for positions beginning in Fall 2019 compared to the previous year. As in Year 1, the most popular specializations in job announcements were Environmental and Sustainability Planning and Transportation, Land Use, and Urban Design. Due to changes in both the coding protocol and database development, job specialization frequencies cannot be directly compared between Year 1 and Year 2 data. However, some trends are visible. Academic year 2018-2019 saw increased calls for applicants focusing on Social Equity, Health Care, and GIS/Big Data/Data Analytics. Other focal area changes are discussed in the report. The Year 3 report (to be released in 2020) is designed to allow the direct comparison of job specializations across years. As expected, the survey results describing PhD programs are strongly similar between Years 1 and 2. As in Year 1, the 2018-2019 results indicate that in excess of 70% of doctoral students have teaching opportunities. Proctoring and grading remain popular teaching tasks. Curriculum design remains the least commonly reported teaching responsibility for PhD students, but was more popularly reported in Year 2 versus Year 1. The majority of PhD programs require students to produce publishable research, while actually requiring publication remains very uncommon. In sum, the Year 2 results reinforce but moderate the Year 1 finding that the academic job market in Planning is competitive. There were fewer academic job openings than academically oriented graduates, and graduates face steep competition for those jobs from faculty engaging in lateral moves. Further, graduates generally have both teaching and research experience. Students will also find uneven job opportunity across specializations, with some seeing more postings than others

The NASA John H. Glenn Research Center: An Economic Impact Study Fiscal Year 2021

The NASA John H. Glenn Research Center, located in Cleveland and Sandusky, Ohio, continues to create vast economic benefits within the regional economies of Northeast Ohio and Ohio by employing local labor, paying high wages to their employees who spend most of their income locally, engaging local contractors, and collaborating with local higher education institutions, providing them with research grants and contracts. This study uses a multi-regional input-output (I-O) model to estimate the effect of NASA Glenn Research Center\u27s spending on the economies of Northeast Ohio and Ohio. For the total economic impact in the state of Ohio in 2021, the researchers found NASA Glenn accounted for a growth in output (sales) of $1.9 billion, value added (output less intermediary goods) of$1.2 billion, 9,095 supported jobs, $853 million in labor income, and$211 million in tax revenue. This report is part of an ongoing research partnership between the Center for Economic Development at Cleveland State University, and NASA Glenn, since 2000

Federal Assistance to Youngstown: Evidence from the Paycheck Protection Program

This presentation examines trends in federal assistance to Youngstown businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in 2020 and 2021. During this time, the Youngstown region received 13,061 PPP loans totaling $1 billion, reaching at least one small business in every Youngstown’s zip code. Most approved loans covered employees’ wages, helping to keep 130,170 workers on payroll during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2021, PPP loans reached smaller businesses, with an average of 5 employees per business, compared to 17 employees in 2020

Economic Vitality Index: Is There a Pandemic Recovery In Ohio?

The 2021 update of the Economic Vitality Index (EVI) illustrates the ongoing effects of the global pandemic and economic slowdown and highlights the impacts of policy responses aimed to ease its detrimental and uneven impacts on the economies of Ohio’s 88 counties

Jobless Pandemic: Geography of Layoffs and Opportunity Zones

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act is a law designed to protect workers against employment losses. Employers are required to provide employees with a 60-day notice in the event of plant closings and mass layoffs. Under normal conditions, WARNs are required in the event of a) Plants closing or stopping operation either permanently or temporarily affecting 50 or more workers; b) Layoffs of 500 or more employees during a 30-day-period or when these layoffs constitute at least a third of the company’s workforce; and c) Temporary layoffs expected to exceed six months, in this case, when a temporary layoff originally not expected to exceed six months gets extended, it would trigger a WARN. This last scenario has been the case of many companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the event of “unforeseeable business circumstances,” businesses are not subject to the 60-day notice requirement, as was also the case of many COVID-19 related layoffs. When the stay-at-home orders caused a sudden loss of business outside of the employer’s control, the state of Ohio required that companies laying-off 50 or more employees due to lack of business must report the layoff within a 7-day period. Given this information, it should be noted that the nature of the WARNs does not allow a complete analysis of all the jobs lost in the region during the pandemic, as small businesses are not obligated to file a WARN and would not traditionally do so. Therefore, the following analysis does not reflect small- to medium-sized businesses. However, sizable layoffs are reflective of large regional employers whose layoffs might trigger considerable impacts in their supply chain. There were a total of 19,318 layoffs reported from companies in Northeast Ohio (NEO) between January and August of 2020, and 18,458 (96%) have occurred since March 19th, just a few days after the stay-at-home order was instated. Immediately after the stay-at-home order, companies began to state COVID-19 as one of the primary reasons behind their mass layoffs. 91% of the reported layoffs since March 19th have been attributed to the pandemic according to the companies’ own WARNs, for a total of 16,857 reported jobs lost. The months of March and April saw the most COVID-19 related layoffs with 6,190 affected, while April saw 5,129 layoffs. Following these huge losses, the numbers dropped to below 2,000, and during the month of August, only 309 lost jobs were reported, which may be a sign of a beginning stabilization in the region

The NASA John H. Glenn Research Center: An Economic Impact Study Fiscal Year 2022

The NASA John H. Glenn Research Center, located in Cleveland and Sandusky, Ohio, continues to create vast economic benefits within the regional economies of Northeast Ohio and Ohio by employing local labor, paying high wages to their employees who spend most of their income locally, engaging local contractors, and collaborating with local higher education institutions, providing them with research grants and contracts. This study uses a multi-regional input-output (I-O) model to estimate the effect of NASA Glenn Research Center\u27s spending on the economies of Northeast Ohio and Ohio. For the total economic impact in the state of Ohio in 2022, the researchers found NASA Glenn accounted for a growth in output (sales) of $2.0 billion, value added (output less intermediary goods) of$1.2 billion, 9,109 supported jobs, $832 million in labor income, and$185 million in tax revenue. This report is part of an ongoing research partnership between the Center for Economic Development at Cleveland State University, and NASA Glenn, since 2000

Opportunities for Youngstown in the Supply Chains of Northeast Ohio and Pittsburgh Economies

The Center for Economic Development at Cleveland State University conducted this analysis to determine opportunities for the Youngstown economy in the supply chains of Northeast Ohio and Pittsburgh economies. Youngstown can account for a greater share of input purchases from the NEO and Pittsburgh regions by focusing on Nonferrous Metal (Except Aluminum) Production and Processing, Alumina and Aluminum Production and Processing, and Plastic Product Manufacturing. Youngstown can develop its economic ties with Pittsburgh’s economy in its aspirational sector – Financial Services

Navigating Government Statistics of Small Businesses for Pandemic Assistance

This brief examines various sources of government statistics to assist in understanding the scope of small businesses, the legal structure of their operations, and their distribution by industry in the Northeast Ohio (NEO) region. Under the current restrictions for business operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many entrepreneurs and small businesses need assistance to maintain cash flow and to retain both their employees and customers. Governments at all levels have developed business assistance programs to help small businesses; more recently, some of these programs have revised their rules. To illustrate who might be affected by the changing rules, several sources of government statistics can be used to define how many companies operate as a small business in the region. Entrepreneurs and small businesses play a crucial role in the regional economy, and for a successful recovery, it is imperative that small businesses and entrepreneurs stay afloat during this pivotal period

An Examination of Incentive Programs to Attract Remote Workers

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic changed the nature of work for many Americans, and the use of these attraction programs escalated quickly. Remote work attraction has quickly become a valuable strategy for municipalities aiming to bolster and target their economic development. The rise of this tool, with its focus on individual community investment rather than traditional models of employer attraction or workforce development, has the potential to reshape economic development policy at the local level. This brief explores the nature of these programs: where they are, what they offer, their conditions, and their early indicators of success. In order to understand what incentivizes municipalities to pursue these policies, we investigated 26 programs covering 36 counties and cities across the United States. We compiled data on population and age dynamics in each geography to understand the potential demographic incentives for attracting a young and educated remote population. Few reports exist about the success of these policies, but early results suggest that they are successful forms of attraction in the new age of worker mobility

The Impact of Covid-19 on Ohio\u27s Supply Chain

This study examines the changes in four of Ohio’s economic sectors from 2019 to 2020 in order to analyze the effect of COVID-19 Ohio supply chains. Through this analysis, our goal is to identify changes during the pandemic and determine future growth opportunities in Ohio’s supply chain. The four sectors chosen to be studied are High Tech and Innovation, Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Health Care. Each of these four sectors includes several industries; High Tech and Innovation includes 6, Agriculture includes 19, Manufacturing includes 328, and Health Care includes 10. To best understand the overall changes in the sectors from 2019 to 2020, the Regional Input, Gross Input, and Value Added was compared for each sector. As can be seen, Value Added declined in every sector from 2019 to 2020, with High Tech and Innovation reporting the largest decrease of 4%. Additionally, High Tech and Innovation, Manufacturing, and Health Care also saw a decline in Regional Input and Gross Input. Manufacturing reported the largest decline in both sectors, with a 10% decrease for Regional Input and a 9% decrease for Gross Input. However, the Agriculture sector reported a 20% increase in Gross Input and a 22% increase in Regional Input between 2019 and 2020