Workforce Analysis of Optics & Imaging
Workforce Analysis of the Optics & Imaging Cluster in the Finger Lakes Economic Development District
Industry clusters are generally defined as interrelated industries and firms that have similar operational, technical, labor, and other resource needs and produce goods or services that may compete with or have strong alliances to each other and are concentrated geographically. E mpire State Development Corporation (ESD), New York State’s economic development agency, has used a cluster strategy to focus efforts on firms that interact with each other based on buyer-supplier relationships, shared technology, perceived membership in a common set of industries, and/or (as in this case) a common workforce in the State’s economic development districts (EDDs). The clusters identified throughout New York State are “basic” or “traded”; that is these groups of industries as a whole export goods and services bringing out-of-area spending to an EDD.
Through a grant from the US Economic Development Administration, ESD and their consultant Regional Technology Strategies, Inc. (RTS) collaborated with the New York State Association of Regional Councils (NYSARC) to administer a survey requesting information on workforce development trends, issues, and priorities in the primary clusters of the State’s EDDs. For the Genesee/Finger Lakes Region, the optics and imaging cluster was chosen given the high location quotient (LQ)1 of firms engaged in these industries in the EDD.
The following analysis includes a brief discussion of the survey methodology used to gather information on the cluster’s workforce, the results of the returned surveys, and significant trends or priorities identified through the survey responses.
Workforce Analysis of the Optics & Imaging Cluster in the Finger Lakes Economic Development District (Adobe PDF)
Appendix
- Survey
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Last Modified: September 15, 2010