This paper asks a simple question: Are occupations that are well diversified across sectors less volatile, and maybe less susceptible to external shocks? Most external shocks (e.g. manufacturing offshoring, oil shocks) impact the labor market along sectoral lines, i.e. they impact product and output markets, and as a consequence they affect employment in various occupations. Some shocks, however, such as services offshoring affect horizontals or occupations. We find that an occupation spread out across many industrial sectors is less volatile, both in terms of numbers employed and the average wage. A dummy variable for offshoreable occupations does not affect the results; however, geographically clustered occupations seem more “at-risk,” after accounting for sectoral diversification.

In the age of offshoring, rising imports, and job loss concerns, it is vital to formulate strategies for export promotion. This paper identifies, examines and analyzes export opportunities for small and medium sized California services firms (SMEs), which employ the majority of California workers. The research assesses trends in services exports, characteristics of the California economy and of small (fewer than 100 employees) and medium-sized firms (100 to 500 employees), resources available from the US federal government and California state and local agencies, market research, and public and private foreign resources to identify services sectors with significant opportunities for export activity. The study focuses particularly on prospects for export growth to large, rapidly growing economies in Asia, including China and India. Services with strong export growth potential include education, energy, technical and scientific services, tourism and software. Additional sectors, where demand is strong but some institutional issues exist include, entertainment, finance, logistics, legal services and environmental services. A variety of public and private resources exist, in the US and abroad, to assist firms seeking export opportunities.