Occupation is an important aspect of the regional economy because regional competitiveness has become increasingly dependent upon local knowledge bases and worker quality. It has been forgotten, however, in most regional economic analysis. This study proposes a new approach that utilizes occupation data available in the public domain in analyzing the regional economy. The study defines occupation clusters and presents three occupation analysis approaches (i.e., overview analysis, occupation cluster analysis, and occupation-based industry-targeting analysis). The Cleveland metropolitan area is used for the illustration of analysis techniques.
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