Economic Development Performance Measures
Measuring economic development goes well beyond looking at the retention and creation of jobs in a community. Ideally, your metrics should be tied to the specific goals of your economic development strategy. This is a sample list of metrics by category that CALED members used to measure the impact of their activities. This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it a universal list that all economic development programs should be measured against. If you would like to contribute sample metrics to this list, please contact CALED.
Community Development
- Percent of organizations that have adopted sustainable development goals
- Government subsidies as percent of gross income
- Annual capital dollars invested in municipal infrastructure
- Percent of sustainable development compatible legislation
- Number % of projects meeting objectives
- Number of communities aided
- Number aided water/wastewater systems achieving goals
- Number of communities improving their telecommunications connectivity
- Percent of cities desiring industrial development that have marketable industrial sites
- Investments in community facilities by type of facility
- Number of communities with strategic plans
- Percent of department investment in distressed areas
- Change in distress level of aided communities
- Percent of department investments in rural communities
- Percent of small businesses assisted
- Percent of minority and women owned businesses assisted
Real Estate
- Industrial space used
- Office vacancy rate
- Number of building permits issued
- Value of industrial and commercial property
- Percent of new residential lots
Economic Measures
- Capital investments per job
- Commercial investment
- Amount/% of tax collected by industry
- Number and value of business loans
- Per capita debt
- GDP per capita
- Total dollars and dollars per capita deposited in local banks annually
- Dollars spent in locally-owned businesses
- Retail sales per capita
- Tourism/bed tax revenues
- Retail sales as a percent of personal income
- Amount of private sector investment in EDA projects as a result of grants
- Amount of state and local funds committed for EDA projects
Labor & Workforce
- Total wage and salary jobs per employed resident
- Number of jobs in value-added manufacturing
- Net job growth
- Percent of jobs created/retained above county average wage
- Average Salaries
- Manufacturing wage and salary jobs as a percent of total jobs
- Wages/benefits as compared to state levels or area with similar industry mix
- Number of job candidates with certifiable skills or college degrees
- Occupational distribution of women and minorities
- Unemployment rate
- Average earning per job
- Employment in hotel and lodging industry
- Employment by sector
- Jobs created/retained per FTE
- Number of commitments per FTE
- Average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance
Business Measures
- Number of companies who export
- Percent of GDP spent on research & development
- Business participation in school and civic events
- Percent of companies developing new products or services
- State rank in telecommunications technology
- New business started/New business licenses
- Number of environmental services, products, and technologies exported
- Percent of GDP from secondary production and business services
- Number of business establishments
- Manufacturing productivity
- Value of business personal property per worker
- Value of goods exported internationally
- Farm Acreage
- Values of key natural resources
- Value added in hotel and lodging industry
- Areas of Cropland that have been converted to developed land
- Number of commercial crop varieties
- Number of cluster identified
- Growth in number of clusters identified in comparison to previous year
- Growth of clusters compared to state growth of same cluster
- Job growth in identified clusters
- New sales of assisted exporters
- Amount of freight transported by air, water, and land
- New car inventories–US dealers’ day’s supply