How can job seekers identify the fastest growing jobs of the future?

The U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics data show how the world of work reflects global economic trends.  

In the face of the climate emergency and growing demand for renewable energy, wind turbine service technicians have the fastest growth rate, followed by solar photovoltaic (solar panel) installers at the third place.

As likely consequences of the pandemic, two other categories of workers will be growing dramatically. The first is the health professions, which will account for over one million new jobs in the next decade. This will be almost 10% of all new jobs created between 2020 and 2030. The second concerns computers and math-related jobs: given the exponential growth of smart-working, a strong demand for IT security and software development is expected.

Tangentially, there will be a large need for people to interpret the vast amount of data: demand for analysing and interpreting large datasets are also expected to contribute to fast employment growth for statisticians, information security analysts and data scientists.

Other trends, such as moving toward environmentally friendly initiatives, the massive adoption of pets during the pandemic, a mental health crisis, working from home and the desire to improve our health and lives, will create all sorts of new opportunities.  

We are likely to see a retirement boom. This will open up opportunities for younger workers. 

Finally, it is important to underline that, while many of the fastest growing jobs are higher paying, they typically also require advanced education.

On the other hand, the occupations that will experience the biggest decline over the next ten years fall into three categories: office and administrative support, sales and retail, and production.

After the coronavirus pandemic kept people out of stores and pushed them to shop online, retail trade is projected to lose more than 500,000 jobs by 2030, the most of any occupation. 

 “These three groups make up the core of the U.S. middle class,” said the Bureau of Labour Statistics Division Chief, Mr. Michael Wolf.

Connected to the growth of renewable energy, no new nuclear plants have opened since the 1990s and nuclear power reactor operators will see employment decline at a steep rate of -33%.

Other fast-declining jobs are disappearing as more companies embrace automation and adopt productivity-enhancing technologies, such as robotics and cloud-based software.

More than half of the industries projected to face the toughest losses are in manufacturing, where international competition and new technologies have slashed jobs.

In the tables below there are the 20 fastest growing and declining jobs from 2020 to 2030, the number of jobs that will be created or lost and the median pay for the position: