Retail Jobs on the Decline
This image may be hard to read, so you can click on the following link to see the original via BusinessWeek’s web site. The print version is even busier with each color being broken down into tiny squares. My question is why are these states the only ones that are highlighted? What about North Carolina up through Delaware? Do they not have retail jobs [rhetorical and facetious]? Wait, if you can read the small print, the states depicted are the ones with the biggest gains and losses of retail jobs. These states fall into the yellow section covering about 60% of the map and are unmeasured.
I guess this is one way to show two values per state; one for retail job losses in the thousands (in dark gray) and percentage of retail jobs as the percentage. Why not use a XY chart?
Most Commented Posts
September 29th, 2008 at 9:26 am
You could do this with an XY chart, with data labels on each point. Such a chart might become cluttered.
It could also be shown via a table or a horizontal bar chart. The chart I described in US Employment Slump Chart – How To seems like it would work. It would have to be tall enough to list all states.
September 29th, 2008 at 9:29 am
I forgot to comment on the horizontal gridlines in the map chart. These do not highlight any geographic or cartographic feature, but are apparently a graphical artifact from the construction of the pseudo-chart.