Diverse Industry Work Areas
Industry Clusters
Industry clusters are networks of firms related to common markets, supply chain, infrastructure, innovation, technology, and labor pools. At the regional labor market level, they are partnerships of employers in one industry that bring together government, education, training, economic development, labor, and community organizations to focus of the workforce needs of their industry. Sector partnerships, by definition, engage employers within a single industry to address their common workforce needs. In the best cases, sector partnership coordinators do more. They understand that by simply bringing employers into the same industry together, they trigger informal existing firms, attracting new one in job creation.
Download a copy of our Combined Regional Impact Report as well as our Industry Cluster and Emerging Sector Summary Update.
Industry and Occupation
Regional Impact Reports
Using the Industry and Occupation study and data-driven decision-making processes, PacMtn identified the top 6 sectors as our major drivers to the local economy.
Regional Impact Reports
PacMtn's Industry Clusters
Top 6 Sectors
Fun Fact
In the United States, lettuce is the second most popular fresh vegetable.
Food Production
Comprised of industries involved in agriculture production and fishing, as well as the transformation of livestock, agricultural products, and other consumable natural resources into products for immediate and final consumption. The cluster contains supply chain components ranging from agribusiness, transportation/distribution, and final consumption (e.g., supermarkets, restaurants, amusement parks).
Fun Fact
Birchwood specifically is used to manufacture toothpicks.
Forest and Wood Products
The core industries range from logging and sawmills to different types of wood manufacturing. Since logging and saw mills are represented with the core industries, the industrial inputs include the engineering and industrial machinery that go into the core industries. Purchasers and distributors include a wide variety of industries such as hospitals, which require a wide range of wood and paper products, and soft drink manufacturing, which primarily buy specific products like cardboard.
Fun Fact
The ultrasound was first used for clinical purposes in 1956 in Glasgow.
Healthcare
This clusters core industries are involved in the development and manufacturing of healthcare products, such as electro-medical products, as well as specialty and niche medical services, such as laboratories, diagnostic imaging, and kidney dialysis centers. Industries providing administrative and engineering services are represented in the industrial inputs, whereas medical facilities such as dentists play the role of purchasers and distributors.
Fun Fact
Plastics are waterproof and do not rot away.
Specialty Manufacturing and Logistics
The core industries are comprised of activities focused on the production of value-add chemicals, such as basic inorganic and organic chemical manufacturing, as well as the production of various plastic products. Inputs to these industries include plastics material and resin products, as well as the research and development behind manufacturing. Purchasers are mostly within other manufacturing and industrial industries.
Fun Fact
The first computer required 50, 24-inch discs, to have a storage capacity just under 5 megabytes.Â
IT and Telecom
Industries specializing in performing computer programming and data processing related services, including custom services, internet hosting, and other computer-related services, comprise the core industries. This sector is particularly entrepreneurial-focused, given the high number of proprietors and self-employed jobs. The industrial inputs revolve around engineering, administrative, and other service-based industries required by the core industries. The purchasers include a variety of industries, such as hospitals, that use the core industries’ services.
Fun Fact
The hotel industry in the US brought in a revenue of over $162 billion in 2016.Â
Hospitality and Tourism
The tourism and recreation cluster as a whole is the larg¬est out of all of the identified targeted industry clusters and is expected to see the most job growth from 2012 to 2018. This is primarily because it includes industries that typically have large employment levels, such as hospitals, hotels, res¬taurants, and independent artists. However, the cluster also has one of the lowest wages out of all of the others, and the core industries rank fairly low in terms of the presence of occupations with high wages.
For Additional Information
See Explore Careers
For more in-depth information about PacMtn's Top 6 Clusters.