Trendsights Newsletter

Community Explorer Tool by County
The Milken Institute’s Community Explorer tool provides an interactive display of a wide variety of data—from economic and demographic numbers to education, housing, and health features— at the county level. This tool can be used to look at all data for one county or to compare counties by the individual data points.
Real Time Labor Market Summaries October to December 2022
Missouri employers posted 224,160 job ads from October through December 2022, with 77 percent for full-time positions. Health Care and Social Assistance was the industry with the largest number of job postings, making up 25 percent of the total. The St. Louis Region had more than 95,000 job postings in the quarter, which was the most of any region. See summaries for the state and each region in these quarterly briefs by clicking on the link above.
Census Economic Indicators Dashboard
The U.S. Census Bureau's economic indicator surveys provide monthly and quarterly data that are timely, reliable, and offer comprehensive measures of the U.S. economy. These surveys produce a variety of statistics covering construction, housing, international trade, retail trade, wholesale trade, services, and manufacturing. A new dashboard of these indicators provides a quick look at the most current trend for each indicator, as well as the next planned release.
Valentine's Day Fun Facts 2023
Valentine's Day spending is predicted to total $25.9 billion in the U.S., with average spending of $192.80 per person, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2023 Valentine’s Day Consumer Survey. In Missouri, chocolate and candy exports topped $10.6 million in 2021. Click on the above link to discover more fun facts about Valentine’s Day and how consumers plan to lavish gifts on their loved ones.
Business Formations Decline in U.S. in December
Business Formation Statistics (BFS) provided by the U.S. Census Bureau measure business initiation activity and the cycle from initiation to realized business formation. These statistics give an early look at business formation activity within the U.S. and a detailed look at the state level and regional levels. Business applications in the U.S. for December 2022, adjusted for seasonal variation, were 417,055. This was a decrease of 0.3 percent compared to November 2022.
Kansas City Region Profile
The Kansas City Region is comprised of five counties in the west central part of Missouri. The region is home to several cities including Kansas City and Independence. The Kansas City Region workforce has almost 591,200 employees, making up 20.2 percent of Missouri’s employment. Health Care and Social Assistance; Retail Trade; and Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services industries are the largest employing industries in the region.
FRED Poverty Graphing Tool for 2021 Data
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) has a new graphing tool for the comparison of county-level poverty data. The tool provides a quick way to track rates by county, create your own graph, and compare the trends over time.
Ozark Region Profile
The Ozark Region is comprised of seven counties in the southwest quadrant of Missouri. This region is home to several cities including Springfield, Branson, Nixa, and Marshfield. The Ozark Region workforce has more than 266,700 employees, making up 9.1 percent of Missouri’s employment. In 2021, 48.9 percent of the workforce was female and 51.1 percent was male, which is about same percentage as Missouri. Health Care and Social Assistance is the largest employing industry in the Ozark Region, showing consistent growth over the years. Retail Trade and Accommodation and Food Services are next largest employing industries.
MERIC How-to Videos
MERIC is building a library of videos about the data available on the website and how to access it. The videos cover topics such as unemployment data and occupational employment and wages estimates. See the first of these videos and watch this page as new topics are added.
Missouri's Boomtown: Wentzville
“Boomtowns” are considered the fastest-growing cities in the United States due to rapid business and population growth. An example of such a place is Wentzville, Missouri. The town saw large five- and eight-year percentage changes in population of 26.4 percent and 42.8 percent, respectively, along with growth in the number of housing units. Learn more about Wentzville and other boomtowns in this article.
Business Index Decreases
Missouri’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for December was 43.6, decreasing 3.6 points from November, according to the monthly Mid-America Business Conditions Survey, conducted by Creighton University. For the first time since the early days of the pandemic in May 2020, the overall Mid America index fell below growth neutral for two consecutive months, pointing to greater economic concerns for 2023. Economists consider the index a key economic indicator measuring such factors as new orders, production, supplier delivery times, backlogs, inventories, prices, employment, import orders and exports. Typically, a score greater than 50 indicates an expansionary economy while a score below 50 forecasts a sluggish economy.
Missouri Language Diversity Brief
Information on language diversity in the state helps inform the public, businesses, agencies, organizations, and other stakeholders of the unique language diversity across Missouri. Ninety-four percent of Missouri residents speak English only. The remaining six percent of residents whose primary language is something other than English can be broken down into two groups: those who are fluent in English and those that have a limited proficiency with the English language. Counties in Missouri that have the largest percentage of the population who speak a language other than English are Sullivan (17.9%), McDonald (12.7%), Pettis (12.1%), Pulaski (11.9%), and Daviess (10.3%).
Growth in U.S. Population Shows Early Indication of Recovery
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released Vintage 2022 national and state population estimates that show, after a historically low rate of change between 2020 and 2021, the U.S. resident population increased by 0.4 percent, or 1,256,003, to 333,287,557 in 2022. The South and West were the fastest growing regions, while the East and Midwest lost residents. Missouri had a population change from 2021 to 2022 of 0.1 percent adding 8,134 residents. Click on the link above to learn more about the change in population by state and region.
Job Ads Comparison - November 2022
Job postings increased by 21 percent from November 2021 to November 2022. In November 2022, there were 74,310 online job postings compared to 61,590 in November 2021. The seasonally adjusted preliminary November 2022 unemployment rate of 2.7 percent in Missouri was slightly higher than the previous month’s (October 2022) rate of 2.6 percent and lower than the previous year’s (November 2021) rate of 3.9 percent.
Census Bureau 2017-2021 American Community Survey Five-Year Estimates Released
The U.S. Census Bureau released new 2017-2021 American Community Survey five-year average data. These statistics cover a broad range of topics about social, economic, demographic, and housing characteristics for all geographies, including the nation, states, counties, places, metros, and census tracts.
Winter Holiday Outlook
This year, only about one-third of Americans plan to travel for the holiday season. See this and other fun facts for travel plans, shipping, spending, and Christmas trees in this quick winter holiday outlook.
2022 Career Grades Report
The 2022 Career Grades report is an analysis of the outlook of occupations based on projected employment trends and average wages. A letter grade is assigned to give a quick indication of the outlook for that occupation. For example, Grade A occupations, on average, earn 58 percent more than the average wage, while both Grade A and B occupations are projected to have more annual job openings than average.
Business Index Increases
Missouri’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for October was 54.9, increasing 4.5 points from September, according to the monthly Mid-America Business Conditions Survey, conducted by Creighton University, Omaha, NE. Economists consider the index a key economic indicator, measuring factors such as new orders, production, supplier delivery times, backlogs, inventories, prices, employment, import orders and exports. An index level of 50 or greater suggests economic growth.
Career Grades Poster - Now Available
The Missouri Career Grades poster provides a quick look at occupations in the state with the top outlook through 2030. This easy reference can be used to help spark conversations about career opportunities with best outlook at a variety of education and training levels. The 24 x 36 inch poster can be used by any organization providing career planning or job seeker services. Order the poster for delivery, or download flier-sized version in English or Spanish.
Real Time Labor Summary: Northwest
Northwest Missouri employers posted 4,750 job ads from July through September, with 70 percent for full-time positions. More than half of the region’s job postings during the quarter were in three industries: Manufacturing, Health Care and Social Assistance, and Retail Trade.
Labor Market Explorer for U.S. Metropolitan Areas
The Labor Market Explorer is a set of dynamic and interactive maps from the Milken Institute with information at the metropolitan area and county levels. This interactive tool allows the user to track employment changes across eight major economic sectors.
Southeast Region Career Grades
The Southeast region is projected to have over 14,800 annual job openings through 2030. Career Grades are assigned letter grades based on an occupation’s outlook over the next decade. In general, higher graded occupations earn more and have higher growth rates. The majority of openings in the Southeast region are in A, B, and C grade occupations. Management Occupations have the highest concentration of grade A and B outlook jobs in the region.
Cost of Living Third Quarter 2022
Missouri had the 9th lowest cost of living in the United States for the third quarter of 2022. In general, the most expensive areas to live were Hawaii, Alaska, the Northeast, and the West Coast. The least expensive areas were the Midwest and Southern states.
Real-Time Labor Market Summaries
Missouri employers posted 245,740 job ads from July through September 2022, with 76 percent for full-time positions. Health Care and Social Assistance was the industry with the largest number of job postings, making up 25 percent of the total. The St. Louis Region had more than 100,000 job postings in the quarter, which was the most of any region. See summaries for the state and each region in these quarterly briefs.