The Fastest-Growing Jobs Have This in Common

Anyone who is starting a career or looking to change career paths would be wise to consider the health care field, judging by employment projections for the next decade.

Four of the five fastest-growing occupations from 2014 to 2024 are in health care, according to new projections released by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics on Monday.

The BLS explains in a blog post:

Looking at the labor market 10 years in the future lets us provide data users with information they can use when choosing a career or determining the education and training needed for job success.

For example, fast-growing occupations show how the economy is changing. … Occupations adding the most new jobs also show there will be many opportunities for employment in health care, retail trade, and food services over the next 10 years.

Such service-providing sectors are expected to account for 94.6 percent of all new jobs added between 2014 and 2024. That amounts to 9.3 million new jobs — with 3.8 million of them specifically in the health care and social assistance sector.

In fact, the health care and social assistance sector is expected to become the largest employing sector by 2024. That means it would surpass the state and local government sector and the professional and business services sector.

Some of the fastest-growing health care jobs, like nurse practitioners and physician assistants, require a master’s degree. The four fastest-growing health care jobs, however, require an associate’s degree at most.

The top 15 fastest-growing jobs for the next decade are:

1. Wind turbine service technicians
2. Occupational therapy assistants
3. Physical therapist assistants
4. Physical therapist aides
5. Home health aides
6. Commercial divers
7. Nurse practitioners
8. Physical therapists
9. Statisticians
10. Ambulance drivers and attendants, except emergency medical technicians
11. Occupational therapy aides
12. Physician assistants
13. Operations research analysts
14. Personal financial advisers
15. Cartographers and photogrammetrists

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