Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Jobs - Big Losers and Winners by 2018

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has done a study of the 10 industries with the largest projected employment decline by 2018 and those with the biggest employment growth by 2018.

Some interesting big losers are newspapers (-24.8%), government postal workers (-13%), and gasoline stations (-8.9%).

Two interesting big winners are employment services (+19.1%) and local government (+8.4%). Well, local government is not that big a surprise, but the exclusions are--not in education and hospitals. Hospitals is especially intriguing since health care is a big winner overall taking four of the top ten “employment growth” positions.

Industries to avoid:

Number
of Jobs
Lost -- Decline - Industry


-159,000 -10.2% -- Department stores
-146,000 -33.7% -- Semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing
-101,000 -18.6% -- Motor vehicle parts manufacturing
-98,000 -13.0% --- Postal service
-95,000 -16.0% --- Printing and related support activities
-89,000 -57.0% --- Cut and sew apparel manufacturing
-81,000 -24.8% --- Newspaper publishers
-76,000 -23.2% --- Support activities for mining
-75,000 -8.9% ---- Gasoline stations
-73,000 ------ ---- Wired telecommunications carriers

Industries with major growth:

Number
of Jobs
Gained - Growth - Industry

835,000 - +82.8% - Management, scientific, and technical consulting services
772,000 - +34.1% - Offices of physicians
656,000 - +45.3% - Computer systems design and related services
607,000 - +40.7% - Other general merchandise stores
600,000 - +19.1% - Employment services
487,000 -- +8.4% - Local government, excluding education and hospitals
441,000 - +46.1% - Home health care services
431,000 - +73.8% - Services for the elderly and persons with disabilities
394,000 - +24.4% - Nursing care facilities
343,000 -- +7.5% - Full-service restaurants

2 comments:

OregonGuy said...

One wonders under which conditions of ceterus paribus these predictions were based?

The first one is, what happened in the past is the best predictor of what will happen in the future:

"To understand the impact of the recession, it is necessary to understand the basics of the BLS projection process. In developing long-run projections, the focus in on long-run trends, including trends in population, labor force, productivity, and output growth."

Next, what has happened in the past will continue in the future:

"...the labor force projections begin with the Census Bureau's latest population projections by age, sex, race, and ethnic origin..."

And, of course, Federal expenditures will decrease form 7.5 percent of GDP to 7.0 percent in 2018.

Kinda makes you wonder where the Editor of the Monthly Labor Review got his advanced training in econometrics, no?
.

T. D. said...

You're right, OG. Predictions are only as good as the assumptions they're based on.

Reality does have a way of throwing unexpected curve balls.

Merry Christmas!