New Sector, w/ Jobs at 10 Pay Grades over 5 yrs

For anyone following this post and interested in the answers to these questions, here's what I've managed to find through some extensive digging: There are two basic approaches, that will (according to everything I've read) yield the same results: A) Analysis-by-parts, or B) Customizing Study Area Data. To be clear, my question is about what to do when ImPlan indicates you've selected an industry sector that does not currently exist in your study area (as opposed to creating an 'exotic' or 'customized' industry that is not among ImPlan's 440 sectors). A) Here's a link to a tutorial on Analysis-by-Parts: http://implan.com/v4/index.php?option=com_multicategories&view=article&id=730:case-study-analysis-by-parts&Itemid=71 B) I was more interested in the Customize Study Area Data approach, so the rest of the information I'll share here relates to that method. Below is a link to a tutorial on customizing study area data, including how to add an industry sector in a study area where that sector is not already present: http://implan.com/index.php?option=com_multicategories&view=article&id=545:545&Itemid=10#create The thread linked to below is related to an earlier version of ImPlan, so the tutorials it mentions may or may not be relevant now, but it appears to indicate that customizing the study area data *once*, to make the sector exist (as described above), is sufficient for a multi-year analysis. Then, just set up Activities and Events as you ordinarily would, to model changes in employment levels or other impacts, across the multiple years of your analysis: https://implan.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=84&id=3556&Itemid=35 So to re-cap, the specific answers to my original questions appear to be as follows: 1) No, the underlying study area data is not altered, nor will other analyses based on that data be affected. 2) No, customizing the study area data once is sufficient; then just create Activities and Events as usual for all the applicable years of the analysis. 3) When customizing study area data, it's only necessary to enter the data items you know (as long as you know at least one of them!). Then just click Update, and ImPlan will fill in the other items with the national averages for that sector. I would be very grateful to anyone who can confirm or correct any of the information above!! Thanks, Jeff Sovich Planning Department City of Greensboro, NC 336-433-7264 jeffrey.sovich@greensboro-nc.gov

Thank you for your post Jeff! We sincerely apologize that it has taken us so long to get back to you. In regards to the information that you have included. The primary difference in these two methodologies is that Customizing the Study Area Data will change the entire underlying Multiplier matrix for the Model you are working with. For this reason, if you choose this methodology, you will want to indicate that you have modified this Model in the Model name for future reference, as there will be no other indicators of this, if you return to this Model for future analysis. However, customizing the Study Area Data will not affect the actual ODF (data file), it will only adjust the Model in which you have customized the Study Area Data, you cannot change the underlying ODF data file. The answer to your 2nd question, you need to only add the Industry once, but you will want to make sure that the values you are incorporating into the Model are in the Model year dollars (i.e. you would not want to enter 2014 year dollar values into a 2012 Model, you will need to adjust 2014 dollars to 2012 dollars before you add you values into the regional data).Again this is not a concern for Analysis-by-Parts as you can make the Event Year adjustment in the Event prior to modeling. In actually doing the Modeling, you will want to be sure that you create an Event and adjust the compensation as is appropriate for each income group. You will also want to take into account the Event Year for each of the wage payments. If you want to describe the impacts in terms of new dollars of Labor Income and new Employment each year we would recommend running each year in a separate Scenario and then reducing the values of total Labor Income and Employment in each year by the amount paid in the previous year's operations (assuming that the jobs are additive so that jobs in year one continue into year two when additional jobs are added). [url=http://implan.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=230&Itemid=60]This article[/url], although addressing more primarily the concept of deflation may be helpful. Unless the entire topic is of interest to you, we would recommend starting on page H-3 at common deflator questions. To create your own industry you can go to the Study Area Data section under Customize on the left side of the Software. You will at least need to enter in the Employment value. You can enter in any of the other known fields however if you do not know then IMPLAN will fill in the rest for you. This will be based on the National Per Worker Average. Unless you have any additional data, this is all that is required. After you have made those changed you will need to rebuild your model through the Options menu > Construct > Multipliers. We certainly hope this helps and again we apologize for the delay in response. Please let us know if you have any additional questions. IMPLAN Support Team