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| Chris Chmura

Economic Impact: Holiday retail sales should be stronger this season

The holiday selling season got off to a strong start on Black Friday but the results were mixed when comparing online versus in-store sales. Online spending for Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday selling season, was up 16.9 percent compared with the same day in 2016, according to Adobe Digital Insights, which tracks online spending in the nation’s 100 largest retail websites.

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| Doug Rice

2016 Employment Projections by Educational Requirements

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released its employment projections for 2016, forecasting the change of employment by occupation ten years into the future. Included in this analysis is the attribution of each occupation to a specific category of “typical education for entry.” Grouping the employment numbers and estimates by these categories, we are able to see how employment is likely to change across various levels of educational attainment.

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| Greg Chmura

2017 NAICS Code Changes

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), used to classify businesses for statistical economic data, is typically updated every five years to reflect the changing economy. There were relatively few changes for the set of new codes just released for use with 2017 data. However, there certainly were some interesting as well as notable changes.

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| Patrick Clapp

Predicting Holiday Spending

While consumers may look forward to lower prices on Thanksgiving turkeys this year, signs are also good for retailers more concerned with the day after Thanksgiving.