Research Publications

The Largest Employers in the City of Boston is a report produced through the results of an analysis of the largest private sector companies with 500 or more employees in Boston.

Mark Melnik, deputy director of research, co-authors article in the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Communities & Banking Spring 2011 issue. Demographic changes and economic growth will result in a changing labor picture that includes encore careers -- jobs filled with workers aged 55 and up. How will this impact the future labor force and labor trends?

This report profiles Boston's current economic state and analyzes past recessions with an eye toward the prospects for recovery.

As a follow-up to the publication released in 2006, this short report demonstrates that although Boston has increased its share of population, employment, Gross State Product, and state tax revenues, the city's share of state aid has further declined.

The BRA's Research Division provided data and analysis for the Mayor's Office of New Bostonians (MONB) first New Bostonians Summit held on March 31, 2010. The Labor Market Trends is a Summit briefing book that looks at Metro Boston's current labor market and workforce, highlighting the importance of education and language skills both currently and in the future.

This report for 2008 presents the major economic, real estate market, and demographic trends for the city and region.

The LMAT Series is a collection of reports focusing on the various applications of the program, including general discussions of the skill requirements and wage distributions associated with selected industries and the labor market as a whole. In addition, the LMAT Series will analyze the relationship between occupational requirements and worker attributes in Boston’s population.

This report re-visits previous research conducted by the BRA Research Division examining the characteristics of Metro Boston’s workforce with limited English language skills and the importance of language skills in the labor market using the newest available demographic data and updated labor market data. The current research finds that Metro Boston's workforce with limited English language skills appears to be significantly larger than it was in 2000. Moreover, the disparity in pay and the potential growth rates between occupations requiring low language skills and jobs requiring at least modest language skills stands out even more in our region than previously reported.

Boston’s job growth has been responsible for leading the economic recovery of the Massachusetts economy since the end of the national recession in the early 2000s. Boston continues to be the economic hub of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the center for commerce in New England – attracting workers from all over the world for jobs in finance, professional services, education and health care.

This report looks at the language challenges of the foreign-born population in Metro Boston and analyzes the language skill requirements for the current labor market, as well as projections for 2014.