Growing and Shrinking Occupations
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment by occupation ten years ahead, and the current release runs 2024 to 2034. Read it carefully and it answers three separate questions that get collapsed into one: which occupations grow fastest in percentage terms, which add the most actual jobs, and which have the most openings. Those are three different lists, and the third is mostly about people leaving rather than jobs being created.
Projections are the most quoted and least carefully read labor data published. Almost every mistake made with them comes from treating one number as if it answered a different question.
Three questions, three lists
Percentage growth favors small occupations. Nurse practitioners are projected to grow 40.1 per cent between 2024 and 2034, which is the fastest of any occupation employing more than fifty thousand people — and in absolute terms that is about 128,000 jobs.
Numeric growth favors large ones. Home health and personal care aides are projected to add roughly 740,000 jobs, nearly six times as many, on growth of 17 per cent.
Openings favor whatever has high turnover. Retail salespersons show over 555,000 openings a year while the occupation is projected to shrink slightly. That is not a contradiction; it is what happens when a large workforce turns over constantly.
Replacement demand is most of it
The openings figure combines jobs created by growth with jobs vacated by people leaving the occupation entirely — retiring, changing fields, leaving the workforce. For most large occupations the second is far larger, which means a shrinking occupation can still be hiring heavily every year.
What projections are and are not
They are a model of the economy under stated assumptions, not a forecast anyone guarantees. They assume no recession and no war, they are revised with each release, and the further out the horizon the wider the real uncertainty around a figure printed to one decimal place.
What they are good for
Direction and relative comparison. "Is this occupation growing or shrinking, and roughly how does that compare with others" is a question projections answer well. "How many jobs will exist in 2034" is a question they answer with false precision.
Articles in this section
- The Fastest-Growing Occupations Over the Next Decade 3 min read
- Occupations Projected to Lose the Most Jobs 3 min read
- Fastest Growth and Most New Jobs Are Two Different Lists 3 min read
- Why Employment Projections Get Revised, and by How Much 3 min read
- Growing Fields That Still Pay Poorly 3 min read
- Replacement Demand: The Openings Nobody Talks About 4 min read
- Occupations That Grew Against Their Own Forecast 3 min read
- How an Aging Workforce Creates Openings 3 min read
- Which Growing Jobs Actually Have a Route Into Them 3 min read
- Reading an Occupational Outlook Entry Properly 3 min read
Common questions
What period do the current projections cover?
2024 to 2034. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes a new ten-year projection each year, so the base and target years move.
Which occupation is growing fastest?
Among those employing more than fifty thousand people, nurse practitioners at 40.1 per cent u2014 roughly 128,000 additional jobs over the decade.
Which adds the most jobs?
Home health and personal care aides, at roughly 740,000 u2014 nearly six times the nurse practitioner figure, on much slower percentage growth.
Why do shrinking occupations have so many openings?
Because openings count people leaving the occupation as well as jobs created. In large, high-turnover occupations replacement demand dominates.
Are projections reliable?
They are a model under stated assumptions rather than a forecast. They are useful for direction and comparison, and misleading if read as a precise count.
How often are they revised?
Every release. Comparing an old projection against what actually happened is one of the more useful things you can do with them.
Reading the Job Market
Projections describe a decade. The next section is about reading the market you are in now.
Read it →