What Will You Need to Find a Job in 2016?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its employment projections for 2006-2016 last December. These projections are released every two years and have been for approximately 60 years.

The BLS projects employment over the next decade to increase by 15.6 million jobs in the next decade. While this is roughly equivalent to the past decade (15.9 million jobs between 1996-2006), expressed as a percentage it represents an overall decline of about 2% in the growth rate. The labor force itself, though, will increase by about 12.8 million between 2006-2016; from 1996-2006 there were 17.5 million entrants into the labor market. The BLS is careful to note that the disparity in the number of those entering the workforce and the numbers of jobs does not necessarily entail a surplus or deficit.

The American economy will continue toward becoming a services-based economy with the service sector encompassing three quarters (75%) of all jobs by the end of this 10-year period, led by professional services and health care providing more than half of the increased jobs. Meanwhile, manufacturing jobs will experience the steepest wage declines over the next decade, and the industry facing the largest overall decline in terms of number of employees will be gasoline stations which will lose 146,000 jobs or almost 17% of their current employment.

So what should you know if you will be starting, or restarting, your career in the next ten years?

The greatest percentage increase by education and training (table 9 of the BLS report) will come in jobs requiring a doctoral degree - an increase of 21.6% over the previous 10 year period - followed by those requiring a Masters' degree (18.9%) and Associates' degrees (18.7%). The greatest increase in the actual number of jobs, though, come with "short-term on-the-job training" increasing by 4.6 million jobs and by 8.8% from 1996-2006. Striking, though, is the fact that those jobs requiring that short term on the job training are those paying the least.

In aggregate the 30 occupations with the largest growth (table 5 in the BLS report) are made up of 14 occupations requiring only short-term OTJ training. Those requiring college degrees are Registered Nurses (Associates' degree, #1), Postsecondary teachers (Doctoral degree, #8), Computer Software engineers (Bachelors' degree, #15), Accountants (Bachelors' degree, #16), Elementary school teachers excluding special education (Bachelors' degree, #18), Management Analysts (Bachelors' degree, #24), Computer systems analysts (Bachelors' degree, #26) and Network & data analysts (Bachelors, #28). Over the longer term, and assuming current legislation stays in place, to be considered "highly qualified" those elementary teachers will have to have a Masters' degree to remain employable, and although #30 "Teacher assistants" are considered to have only short term OTJ training, if they are federally funded, these positions will require an Associates' degree.

Of occupations with the largest number of openings due to growth AND replacements due to the aging workforce (table 6 in the BLS report), only 5 source post secondary education or training from college degrees: Registered nurses, Post secondary teachers, elementary teachers, accountants, and General management.

Those occupations seeing the largest employment declines by number of jobs (table 8), only 1 will typically have training requirements met with a college degree - Computer programmers - the rest require short- or long-term OTJ training; 1 will typically be met with vocational training. These positions run from stock clerks/pickers, cashiers; bindery, prepress and other production occupations; and data entry and switchboard operators in the administrative support occupations.

While it would be overly simplistic to suggest that the only key over the next 10 years is to possess at the very least an associates degree, as a rule of thumb that will be the minimum entry requirement to the best positioned occupations. These data show that generally speaking, a solid educational background will do a lot toward qualifying yourself for employment in the coming decade, and the more education and training you have the better prepared you will be in the workforce.

RESOURCES:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecopro.pdf

http://www.boston.com/jobs/galleries/30fastest_growing_occupations/