Unemployment Numbers You Need To Know
September 2, 2010 
11 Comments
Although I hate taxes as much as the next guy, I have to appreciate some of what I get for my money. Case in point, how often do you check the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics? Okay, there was a time would I would have said “never” as well. However, I feel myself being pulled back to it from time to time because of the piles and piles of data it has. For example, late last year (or was it early this year?) the BLS published a report called “Employment Projections: 2008-2018 Summary.” What did it do? In a nutshell, it looked at a bunch of numbers and predicted which industries would boom over the next decade and which one would go the way of the dinosaur.
Hint! Hint! If I were a college student picking out a career or someone who was about to invest in some vocational training, I would look really hard at data like this. It would be a tragedy to invest so much time and energy into an industry that will (most likely) be irrelevant by the time I graduate or complete my training program. (Make sense?)
Okay, here are the highlights from that report:
The top 10 growth industries:
* Management, scientific and technical consulting services
* Offices of physicians
* Computer systems design and related services
* Other general merchandise stores
* Employment services
* Local government, excluding education and hospitals
* Home health care services
* Services for the elderly and persons with disabilities
* Nursing care facilities
* Full-service restaurants
The top 10 industries expected to experience the steepest employment declines:
* Department stores
* Semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing
* Motor vehicle parts manufacturing
* Postal service
* Printing and related support activities
* Cut and sew apparel manufacturing
* Newspaper publishers
* Support activities for mining
* Gasoline stations
* Wired telecommunications carriers
And here are a few more interesting tidbits you might want to know:
* As Baby Boomers grow older and continue their trend of increased labor force participation, the number of persons ages 55+ in the labor force is expected to increase by 12 million, or 43% percent, during the 2008-18 period. Those ages 55+ are projected to make up nearly one-quarter of the labor force in 2018.
* Young people (age 16-24) are expected to account for 12.7% of the labor force in 2018, and persons in the prime-age working group (ages 25- 54) to account for 63.5% of the 2018 labor force.
* Hispanics (who can be of any race) will join the labor force in greater numbers than non-Hispanics. The number of Hispanics in the labor force is projected to grow by 7.3 million or 33.1%. Their share of the labor force will expand from 14.3% in 2008 to 17.6% in 2018.
* All but three of the top 30 fastest-growing detailed occupations are found within professional and related occupations and service occupations. Seventeen of these rapidly growing occupations are related to healthcare or medical research.
So there you have it ladies and gentlemen, your tax dollars at work.
-Jim Stroud
Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.nr0.htm
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This is really great information becuase if you are looking for a job you need to know what your chances are.This was a good tip you can use!!!
Jimmy
Good article with valuable information.
Thanks guys!
-Jim
Send on to ALL of your friends and loved ones to support their best efforts!
Cindy
Great article, but not at this time. With today’s lousy job numbers and the down-turn in the economy, “there ain’t no jobs”, the only growth in the private sector is the health industry and education, both government subsidized, I suggest that you learn a trade, become an entrepreneur, or you will be a Wal-Mart greeter.
This article has some good information, but it seems that what applies today won’t apply tomorrow. The only sure-fire way I know to protect yourself is to take matters into your own hands, become an entrepreneur, and don’t depend on anyone else.
As always, great job on the post Jim! You hit right on my career – Workforce Development. I don’t agree with some of the comments here by other readers. This is EXACTLY the information one needs to remain on top of her/his game. It’s important to know these projections for the well-being of your own career in the next decade. I have written about this as well on my site. A tip for job seekers is that your local Workforce Investment Board is the place to call to see where training dollars are abundant. Depending on your personal circumstances you may qualify for some paid training in high demand careers.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Great post Jim. I agree with Karla. It may sound great to try to be an entrepreneur but it is not realistic to think everyone will be able to make a living at it. There will always be careers and observing trends can help one to “guess” what’s coming. I, too, have found myself visiting the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. I sure wish it was more user friendly though.
Great info everyone should know.
This is very good info, but I have to wonder if they really took the recession and subsequent depression into consideration for the years between 2008-2018.
It is a fact that older workers are having a much harder time finding even part-time employment during these hard times.
Employers seem to prefer younger workers because of the perception that they are more energetic.
And we all know that an older woman will lose every time to a pretty young girl in the selection process, even with her avalanche of experience.
Bad magic (number crunching) = Bad facts.