Why is this important?
Tracking employment gains and losses is a basic measure of economic health. Shifts in employment across industries suggest structural changes in Long Island’s economic composition. Over the course of the business cycle, employment growth and decline across industries can be cyclical, but the permanent changes reflect how the region’s industrial mix is changing.

How are we doing?
Long Island hosts a diverse industry base in which key industries are growing while others continue to wane.  The y-axis displays the employment concentration of each industry cluster and its ratio to New York’s employment in a cluster. A concentration greater than one indicates Long Island has relatively more employment in that cluster as compared to the State’s economy as a whole.  Construction & Building Materials 31 percent more concentrated then the state and has continued to grow over this period by 2.6 percent at an average annual rate. Although Advanced Manufacturing has declined in employment, it remains a highly concentrated cluster, 67 percent more concentrated than the state.

Information Technology (IT), Biological Sciences and Clean Energy represent Long Island’s key industry clusters of opportunity.  Since 2000, Biological Sciences is highly concentrated and has grown at an annual rate of 9.5.  Although still small, Clean Energy has grown annually 4.7 percent since 2001 and continued growth is expected.  IT is large and concentrated, and though employment has declined, it remains an important and diverse industry on Long Island.