Charts source: Global Insight, July, 2006. Spring MSA Forecast

Greater Philadelphia’s economy is more knowledge-based than ever before.

• Industries such as education and health services, professional and business services, financial activities and information technology require highly educated and skilled workers.
  
• Those workers now make up the 43 percent of the region's total employment.
  
• The region’s established manufacturing companies, such as Boeing, DuPont and Rohm & Haas, increasingly require knowledge workers.
  
• In 1990, the manufacturing sector accounted for 13.7 percent of total non-farm employment in the region; by 2005 the sector’s employment share had fallen to 7.9%.
  
• By contrast, in 1990 the private, services-providing sectors had 67.5% of the region’s total employment.
  
• By 2005 these sectors accounted for 73.7 percent of total employment due primarily to the rising importance of the knowledge economy.

Source: Complied by Select, Employment numbers from Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, Major Employees Directory, 2005.