I’m backing up and trying a new project.

Lots of talk about the loss of US manufacturing employment. Here in New York, we’ve noticed a dip in the amount of scrap metal being shipped from the region toward other states. I wanted to take a look.

So a few weeks ago I talked to a local scrap metal recycler and he told me to take a look at domestic metal refabrication markets.

Much of the the steel, copper and aluminum the greater New York area exports heads to Pennsylvania and Ohio. I pulled Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data for those states over the past few years (April data only). I stuck to NAICS code 331: primary metal manufacturing.

And, well, maybe there was a dip last year in relevant employment. Ohio on the left, then Pennsylvania on the right (each shows metal manufacturing employment for April 2013-2016):

If you squint (I’m not using ggplot or anything fancy right now) it looks like last year’s primary metal manufacturing employment is lower in 2016 … see? (Squints).

I’ll take a closer look later.

Later …