Author: Jeff Rosenthal
The Labor & Economic Analysis Division (LEAD) of the North Carolina Department of Commerce has recently produced long term employment projections for the 2018-2028 period. We plan to have several short blogs to provide highlights of the findings.
This third summary will look at job openings.
From previous blog articles, most occupations are projected to growth. But one thing worth noting is that occupations projected to decline will often require people to fill openings created due to separations.
Job openings are comprised of the actual growth of the occupation itself, as well as openings from what are called ‘separations’- which are people leaving occupations. There are two types of separations we consider- those leaving the labor force itself (e.g. retirees, people leaving to start a family or return to school without working), and those leaving one occupation for another (e.g. promotion from line worker to supervisor, career change)*.
Figure 1 shows that occupational separations provide significantly more job openings than employment growth. At the state level across all occupations, the number of job openings available due to separations (5,678,000) is 18.8 times higher than those from growth (302,300).
The largest number of total annual openings will occur in occupations with traditionally high turnover rates or those that do not require extensive skills or training, including Food Preparation & Serving Related Occupations; Office & Administrative Support Occupations; Sales & Related Occupations; Transportation & Material Moving Occupations; and Production Occupations. These occupations are also at the lower end of the pay scale, with annual median wages ranging from $19,840 for Food Preparation & Serving Related Occupations to $34,300 for Office and Administrative Support Occupations, all below the state median occupational wage of $35,750.
Additional resources for the 2018-2028 Employment Projections can be found from the links below:
- Projection Summary: North Carolina Employment Projections 2018-2028
- Impact of COVID-19 pandemic and response efforts on the NC Employment Projections
- Projections Data by Industry and Occupation
*For more information, consult with https://www.nccommerce.com/blog/2018/10/08/recent-changes-projections-methodology.