Our recent Employment Outlook article focused on how an aging population is constraining the size of the labor force in Maine. Though a small decrease in employment is expected for the period from 2018 to 2028, over 75,000 job openings are projected each year. This article focuses on the number and rate of openings that are expected among occupations and how the structure of employment is expected to continue to gradually shift.
Changes in demand for goods and services and in the competitive landscape cause employment to rise in some companies and industries and decline in others. This impacts the level of demand for workers among occupations. Rising or declining employment in banks, for example, impacts demand for tellers and loan officers. At the same time, the occupational distribution of jobs within industries continually shifts as technology and work processes evolve and alter how functions are accomplished. Returning to our banking example, the shift to more transactions processed online caused the share of information technology jobs to increase relative to tellers over the last two decades.
Shifting Job Structure
Occupations are categorized into 22 broad groupings of generally like functions. The number of jobs is expected to increase in 14 and decrease in eight of those groups in the ten years through 2028. The largest job gains are expected in the health practitioner and technician, food preparation and serving, personal care and service, and healthcare support occupational groups. The largest job decreases are expected in office and administrative support, sales and related, and production groups. Job growth in health and personal care occupations is largely due to the rapidly rising senior population, as described in the previous blog. The number of jobs in administrative support, sales, and production occupations is expected to continue to decrease due to increased automation of repetitive tasks and a rising share of online retail transactions.
Projected Job Change by Occupational Group
The number of jobs is expected to change by more than five percent in only six of the 22 groups, resulting in only marginal changes in the occupational structure of employment. The groups with the most or fewest jobs in 2018 are expected to remain the same in 2028. The expected gain of 1,300 jobs in personal care and service occupations will move it from the ninth to the eighth largest group in 2028. Despite the expected decrease of 7,100 jobs, the office and administrative support group will remain the largest with more than 88,000 jobs.
Jobs by Occupational Group, 2018 and Projected 2028
Some media coverage of our previous forecast to 2026 said that we expect people employed in certain occupations to lose their jobs. The labor market is more dynamic than that interpretation portrays. There is a constant flow of people into and out of the labor force as young people reach working-age, older people retire, and some take time out of labor force for reasons such as to gain an education or work credential, or to raise children, and then return to work. Additionally, individuals advance their job knowledge, skills, and qualifications and move up the career ladder into different occupations. These dynamics create job opportunities for people without necessarily leading to displacement of people from their job or substantial changes in the total employment.
Job Openings
Information to guide career choices has tended to focus on occupations projected to increase in number. That focus is too narrow because of the large flows of people into and out of the labor force and from one occupation to another. These dynamics result in large numbers of job openings each year. In the decade through 2028 an average of 75,100 job openings are expected each year. Over the course of the decade there will be more openings – 751,000 – than there are jobs today.
In virtually every occupation there will be job openings created through both job growth and replacement needs. Among the nearly 690 occupations with employment in Maine, the number of jobs is expected to increase in 230 and decrease in 460 occupations between 2018 and 2028. A majority of job openings – 62 percent—are expected in occupations in which the number of jobs is projected to decrease. This is because most of those who retire or move to another occupation need to be replaced by their employer. A minority of job openings – just 38 percent -- are expected in occupations in which
Jobs by Occupational Group, 2018 and Projected 2028 the number of jobs is projected to increase and most openings in those occupations will stem from replacement needs rather than from job growth.
Production occupations, mostly found in manufacturing environments, provide a good example of this. Though we expect employment in production jobs will decrease by 3,000 during the ten-year period, an average of 3,900 job openings are expected each year through 2028 to replace others who leave the labor force or transition to other occupations.
Projected Annual Number of Job Openings by
Occupational Group, 2018 to 2028
The number of openings in an occupation is generally related to the number of jobs, though there are some exceptions. Rates of growth or decline vary, of course, and so do rates of turnover from labor force exits and occupational transfers. It is generally the case that occupations that require advanced or specialized training and that pay well, such as healthcare practitioners, tend to have an older, more settled workforce with generally lower rates of turnover and job openings. Occupations with limited education or skill requirements that offer relatively low pay, such as food service jobs, tend to have a younger, less well-established workforce, and much higher rates of worker turnover.
Projected Annual Job Openings Rate by
Occupational Group, 2018 to 2028
The labor market changes gradually each year. Over short periods those changes are small; over extended periods they are significant. By the time a person retires, the occupational composition of the labor market will be quite different compared to when they started working. Additionally, the knowledge and skill requirements of occupations change over time. The penetration of automation, mechanization, and information technology into how we perform tasks has made some occupations obsolete, created entire new fields of work, and generally changed how tasks in most occupations are performed. This will continue in the years ahead. In an ever-evolving environment, it is important for individuals to keep their job skills current to meet the changing needs of employers.
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This has been a very general description of our occupational employment projections to 2028. Detail on 690 individual occupations, including projected growth or decline, openings, and wages is available at
www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/outlook.html. Users can generate charts or tables for occupations by number of expected job openings, rate of change, or net change, including by education requirement. The following charts are examples of some of the available information.
Occupations That Require a High School Diploma or Less with the
Most Annual Openings, 2018 to 2028
Occupations That Require a Bachelor's Degree or Higher with the
Largest Net Job Growth, 2018 to 2028
Occupations That Require Some College, a Non-Degree Award, or Associate’s Degree with the Fastest Expected Rate of Job Growth Between 2018 and 2028
