This Is the Occupation Adding the Most Jobs

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Sep 20, 9:30AM EDT

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This Is the Occupation Adding the Most Jobs — © SDI Productions / Getty Images

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has just issued its Employment Projections — 2020-2030 report. The primary conclusion is that total employment over the course of the decade will grow from 153.5 million to 165.4 million. That puts the annual growth rate at 0.7%, which is higher than in many 10-year periods in the past. That is due, in part, because of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic-driven recession. Another reason is that gross domestic product is expected to grow at a healthy rate of 2.3% per year over the same period.

The document reports on employment at two levels. The first, known as “Industry Employment,” is very broad. The second, “Occupational Employment,” is much more specific in terms of exactly which job categories will grow fastest.

Commenting on Industry Employment, the authors wrote: “Employment in leisure and hospitality is projected to grow the fastest among all sectors over the 2020–30 decade, accounting for 7 of the 20 fastest growing industries.”

This industry was particularly damaged by the pandemic recession as millions of jobs at restaurants, hotels, theme parks and bars were lost and many of these closed. On an individual basis, some of them are closed permanently. However, some of the largest venues, like theme parks owned by Disney, have reopened.
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On the more granular level, among occupations, the fastest growth is expected in what the BLS calls “healthcare support.” The report’s authors write: “Healthcare occupations and those associated with healthcare (including mental health) account for 7 of the 30 fastest growing occupations from 2020 to 2030.”

The BLS’s Occupational Outlook Handbook covers the same 10-year period, and its authors report that employment in health care occupations is forecast to grow by 16%, which is an increase of 2.6 million jobs. The occupation covers a number of categories, including doctors, nurses, dental workers, EMTs, home health care aides and pharmacists. One theory is that these occupations will grow due to the needs of an aging population.

Click here to read about America’s 25 fastest-growing jobs.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.