Andrey Kamenov, Ph.D. Probability and Statistics
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by the end of 2014, Florida passed New York to become the Nation’s third most populous state. Let’s take a more detailed look into the matter.
We’ve highlighted the four most populous states on the map below: California, Texas, Florida and New York. The fifth state by population, Illinois, is over a third smaller.
Clicking on any one of the four states will allow you to see the population change by county. The immediate observation is that New York’s county map has a significantly smaller contrast than those of the other three states. Indeed, the interquartile range of the relative population change between counties is less than 3 percent, compared to more than 7 percent in California and over 10 percent in the other two states.
So, it looks like migration is much more volatile in Florida. The immediate question is what this means for businesses — has Florida’s employment profile changed in recent years?
Below you can find an interactive chart which allows you to take a look at how the total employment numbers changed throughout the last decade.
As you can see, the fastest-growing sector in Florida is Administrative/Support. It added almost 700,000 jobs between 2004 and 2012 (which translates to an impressive growth of nearly 130 percent!). Interestingly, despite its faster growth, the construction sector in Florida has lost more jobs (almost 150,000).
Source(s): the US Census Bureau County Business Patterns and Population Estimates data.
About Andrey Kamenov
Andrey Kamenov, Ph.D. Probability and Statistics
Andrey Kamenov is a data scientist working for Advameg Inc. His background includes teaching statistics, stochastic processes and financial mathematics in Moscow State University and working for a hedge fund. His academic interests range from statistical data analysis to optimal stopping theory. Andrey also enjoys his hobbies of photography, reading and powerlifting.
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Construction in Florida is still ongoing. Housing prices seems to have recovered spurning new construction. However, could your data of lost jobs (documented) indicate that much more of these jobs are going to illegal undocumneted workers? Hence the statistical loss? My experience as a general contractor in Florida saw the necessitiy to use the cheapest labor available to become competetive in the bidding process. Just for your company to survive–you have to use the illegals.
Hi jd,
Yes, that’s a good point.
Of course, we don’t have any reliable data on the number of illegals working there. But the number of people born outside the U.S. working in the sector does indeed grow faster in Florida than in other major states.
When we do the math, we find that the illegal population in this country approximates 3.4%. Furthermore, illegal immigration from Mexico (which is what most people think of) has been declining for the last couple of years.
Furthermore, the bulk of population growth in South Florida is legal immigration, not just from LATAM, but also from all over world. Israel, Eastern Europe, Canada, China, India, Japan.
But that won’t stop people asking whether illegal immigration is or might be a factor in the reduction of X or Y types of jobs.
Complex questions demand simple answers, as desired by the plebs.
California outside of a few crowded expensive areas is awful.
Soon to be a sanctuary state, head for the exits.
United States…already a sanctuary country and quickly becoming 3rd world. Head to the nearest exit.