There will the new jobs be in the coming years? A new forecast by the state’s Employment Security Department is full of interesting predictions.
First, the good news. A lot of those jobs will be in Southwest Washington. We lagged the state during the recession. In fact, our region posted only 1.02 percent annual job growth between 2003 and 2013; it’s a good bet most of that came in the final year or two as the economy reawakened.
But lately the job market has been hot. For the first time, our employed workforce tops 150,000. And for the 12 months ending in June, the county added 5,400 jobs, an annualized growth rate of 3.7 percent.
This report predicts the good times will continue. The projected annual employment growth rate soars to 1.96 percent from 2013 to 2023, the fastest rate of any region in the state. That’s significantly better than the two decades between 1990 and 2013, when employment grew by 1.68 percent per year.
If you don’t like living in our area, Seattle and King County will continue to be a good place to find a job, with employment growth projected at an average annual rate of 1.94 percent through 2023. Spokane also looks like a relocation possibility, but not as good as the Tri-Cities. The Olympic Peninsula, long touted as a great place for Washingtonians to retire, will remain that way. There will be relatively few new jobs in that region.
Statewide, the new jobs will be in a variety of occupations. Construction jobs are expected to grow the fastest over the next decade, at 2.96 percent per year. A lot of these jobs were lost in the recession and the sector is still regaining ground.
Construction is followed closely by computer and mathematical occupations (2.91 percent) and health care support occupations (2.34 percent.) A lot of the other growth occupations seem related to services required by aging baby boomers, from health care practitioners to personal care and service.
At the bottom of the growth projections are production jobs and the farming, forestry and fishing sector.
Specific job titles that will see increased demand include software developer, carpenter, construction laborer, janitors and cleaner (except maids and housekeepers), and wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives (except for technical or scientific products).
In a decade, the most jobs will be found in office and administrative support occupations, in sales, and in food preparation and service. The most help-wanted advertisements will probably be for retail salespeople, according to the state’s projections, although as a percentage of the workforce, there will be fewer of them than there are today. The same holds true for general office workers.
For the first time this year, the state tried to convert occupation projections into skills projections to help job seekers, educators and policymakers see what kinds of training should be emphasized. The fastest growth was projected for skills related to information technology. The top three hard skills were food preparation, bilingual and quality assurance.
A lot more information is available in the report, which you can read for yourself by going to esd.wa.gov and searching for “2015 employment projections.”
The final takeway is this: A lot of information about current and upcoming job opportunities is available by visiting the state’s WorkSource office, 5411 E. Mill Plain Blvd.
