Where We Work: Visualizing Jobs In The U.S. And Idaho

Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

To see Planet Money's full post, click on the image above.

The good folks at NPR’s Planet Money created this neat visualization of how the jobs we work have shifted over time.  The clearest change is in manufacturing jobs.  In 1972, they accounted for nearly 24 percent of jobs in the U.S.  Now, just 9 percent of workers are employed in that sector.  The proportion of jobs in service industries, meanwhile, has grown substantially.

Government jobs hold the top spot, employing more than 16 percent of U.S. workers.

We’ve spent a good deal of time documenting just what people here in Idaho do for work.  For example, this county-level map shows whether the private or public sector is responsible for a greater share of jobs.

This story shows Idaho’s top 30 employers, and the extent to which they’ve expanded or cut back since 2005.  As it explains, government jobs are at the top of the heap in Idaho, too.  “If taken as one entity,” the post says, “the state would finish well ahead of other employers in [Idaho], with about 24,400 employees at the start of this calendar year, according the state controller’s office.”