One of the main takeaways from Georgetown’s recent workforce and target industry analysis (see is the scope and scale of the city’s “labor shed,” according to Michaela Dollar, the city’s economic development director. Economic analysts use the term to describe the geographical area from which a city draws workers, which can extend beyond its city limits. Essentially, the labor shed shows the territory where people who work in Georgetown live and from which areas the city might be able to attract new people into its workforce. Determining the borders of a city’s labor shed is important due to the fact that a city’s economy is rarely contained within its city limits, according to Avalanche Consulting, the Austin-based company hired to complete Georgetown’s analysis. The consultancy states that in order to have a more complete understanding of a city’s available workforce, it is necessary to look at the broader labor market from which the city draws rather than look only to the market inside its boundaries.