For this project, I continued the theme of automation as the hidden culprit of job loss in the automotive manufacturing sector. For my graphics, I wanted to convey the wide distribution and severity of the issue to my audience as well as strong evidence for a causal relationship.

For my first graphic I plotted the distribution of auto manufacturing plants in the US against percentage of manufacturing job loss from 1994-present by state, in part to make up for the fact that I could not find data for more specific automotive manufacturing job loss by state.

For my second visual I plotted growth (or decline) rates for automotive manufacturing productivity, output, use of automation, and employment of the US labor force to dispel the notion that outsourcing was the cause of automotive manufacturing job loss; if that were the case, output and productivity would have stagnated or declined as well. Instead the match the growth of the automation cover, implying a strong correlational, if not causal relationship.

On the initial drafts of my data visualizations I received feedback that more data should be included to illustrate my point. It was also suggested I add more visual interest and clarify why different points of color were used on the map image.

For my revised data visualizations, I still relied on the Adobe Spark format for presentation as I think it is an effective tool for showcasing the data alongside explanatory text. I changed the title text to better reflect the common theme I’ve been using throughout my “campaign”, though I did keep the banner image the same. For the first image, I changed all the locations signifying automotive manufacturing plants to the same color, the only reason they were uniform originally was because of the source material. Being that this visualization is busy as is, I opted not to include further aesthetic alterations. I then created a new visualization altogether that illustrates the major causes of automotive sector job loss since 1979, the year in which America’s automotive industry is thought to have peaked. This pie chart ties my argument together and is the central focus point of all my data. For further evidence, I included my line graph improved from the original aesthetically with the incorporation of icons that made identifying trends easier.

I think my final version of my data visualizations showcase appears more professional than the original iteration. I pared back my text as much as possible to let the images “do the talking” and included new aesthetic elements. The addition of the new pie graph solidifies the point I’ve been trying to make to make all along and makes the concept more tangible to the audience.

Sources:

www.bls.gov

www.citizen.org/job-loss-map

www.heritage.org