Economy of Pittsburgh

Main Article: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The economy of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is diversified, focused on services, medicine, higher education, tourism, banking, corporate headquarters and high technology. Once the center of the American steel industry, and still known as "The Steel City," today the city of Pittsburgh has no steel mills.

The city of Pittsburgh has shifted from an industrial economy to one based on health care, research, hospitality and tourism through the 1990s. The City of Pittsburgh was forced to file for financially distressed status under Pennsylvania's Act 47 in December of 2004. Financial analysts are cautiously optimistic as the unemployment rate seems to have peaked at 6.8 percent in January of 2003 and has come back down to 4.8 percent in April of 2005.

The largest employment sector for the Pittsburgh area is in health, educational, and social services. Though heavy manufacturing is only 12.3 percent of the work force as of May 2005. Estimates in 2005 shows research is now the third largest industry; the Pittsburgh area is home to 150 laboratories and over 7,500 scientists and engineers. Service, hospitality, and tourism jobs are growing fast as well, adding more than 10,000 jobs in these sectors since 1994. Film making is another emerging industry. Major motion pictures made in Pittsburgh include the original Angels in the Outfield, Night of the Living Dead, The Deer Hunter, Flashdance, Gung Ho, The Silence of the Lambs, Lorenzo's Oil, Hoffa, Groundhog Day, The Wonder Boys, and The Mothman Prophecies.

History

Industrial Revolution

Pittsburgh produced around one third of the national output of steel by the 1920's. During this time period Pittsburgh was home to the world's largest tube and pipe mill, structural steel plant, rail mill, wire manufacturing plant, bridge and construction fabricating plant.

"Boat building and metal industries were later the economic base of the region. When coke from coal began to replace charcoal from wood in iron and steel making Pittsburgh grew up as the heart of the industry. A plentiful supply of bituminous coal underlies the Pittsburgh area." Around forty percent of the nations coal was obtained from within 100 miles of Pittsburgh.

Twentieth Century

In the 1900s the economy of Pittsburgh was primarily driven by the steel industry. In 1901, The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers organized a general strike against the U.S. Steel Corporation subsidiaries, causing the first strike since 1892.

However in the 1980s the steel industry collapsed leaving half of the nation's steelworkers unemployed.

Present Economy

Pittsburgh appears to not have been as affected as badly as the rest of the nation during the absolute worst of the recession. Our nations economy has taking the hardest hits in the housing and auto industry, fortunately for Pittsburgh, it has relatively little dependence to either of these industries. Pittsburgh never had much of a “housing boom”, thus Pittsburgh has not been disturbed locally to the loss of the housing activity. Pittsburgh has several educational institutions and a wide range of health care related employers that steady the local economy through the recession. As a result, Pittsburgh’s unemployment rate will remain well below average.

Statistics

Employment

The largest occupational group in the Pittsburgh area was office and administrative support with a total of 202,300 jobs representing 18.0 percent of area employment. Sales and related jobs made up the second-largest major occupational group in the Pittsburgh area with 124,520 jobs and 11.1 percent of local employment. Other local occupational groups with above-average shares included healthcare practitioner and technical, healthcare support, community and social services, and food preparation and serving related. Transportation and material moving and production jobs were also among the larger occupational groups in Pittsburgh, accounting for 6.9 and 6.7 percent of employment, respectively.