Please, find below a 30-second video about the dashboard Career Path Insights: Wage and Employment Trends Across Industries and States in the U.S.

Business Case

Maven Careers, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping high school seniors find career paths, requires the development of an interactive dashboard to be used during upcoming school visits. The Head of Research has requested this dashboard to assist students in exploring wage and employment trends from 2017 to 2020 across industries and states in the U.S., enabling students to make informed career decisions.

Business Needs

• Create an interactive dashboard for high school seniors with seamless user interaction.
• Enable exploration of wage and employment trends across industries and states in the U.S.
• User-friendly and intuitive dashboard, allowing to filter and drill down into specific data points
• Provide comparisons across different industries.
• Include a map to show differences across states.

Development Outline

1. Purpose

The primary goal of the dashboard is to serve as an informative tool for high school seniors, providing insights into wage and employment trends to aid in their career planning.

2. Key Metrics

The dashboard focuses on critical metrics such as average wages, employment rates, and industry comparisons.

3. Data Preparation and Tools Involved

Clean and organize the labor statistics data to ensure accuracy and readiness for visualization by employing tools such as Excel, Power Query, PowerPivot, DAX, and PivotTables.

4. Primary & Supporting Visuals

Visuals, such as charts, graphs, and a map, were created to illustrate key trends and differences across states.

5. Design Layout

The dashboard is intuitive and user-friendly, facilitating easy navigation and interpretation of data.

Results and Key Insights

1. The Finance and Information sectors had the highest average wages across all states during the analysis period.

2. Both industries saw a steady increase in average wages, peaking in 2020, while employment significantly decreased during the same period.

3. California (likely influenced by high salaries in Silicon Valley), Washington, and New York had the highest average wages, with significant employment figures in these states.

4. To ensure fair comparisons, employment per capita was used to normalize the data, preventing skewing by highly populated states like Texas and California.

Recommendations for High School Students

1. Consider careers in Finance and Information Sectors as these sectors consistently offer the highest average wages, making them lucrative career paths. These sectors had a steady increase in wages, peaking in 2020. This trend suggests strong earning potential and financial stability in these fields.

2. Be aware of employment trends. Despite the rise in wages, there has been a significant decrease in employment in both sectors. This indicates increased competition for jobs, so gaining relevant skills, certifications, and qualifications is crucial to be set apart from other candidates.

3. Focus on high-wage states such as California, Washington, and New York as they offer the highest average wages, with significant employment opportunities. Consider exploring educational and career opportunities in these states, particularly in hubs like Silicon Valley. Nevertheless, students should balance potential earnings with living expenses to make informed decisions about relocating for career opportunities.

4. Utilize employment per capita data to make fair comparisons across states, looking beyond highly populated states like Texas and California to discover opportunities in other regions that might offer less competition and better job prospects.

5. Stay informed about the latest trends and developments in these industries to understand where future opportunities might arise and to ensure the skills remain relevant.