OGDEN — The hot jobs in the immediate future will be electronic or medical, job forecasters say.
"Health care is, of course, the area that is the strongest, with the aging of the baby boomers," says Jim Robson, a state economist with the Workforce Resource and Analysis section of the Utah Department of Workforce Services.
"Baby boomers just started to retire last year. That big cohort will be retiring for the next 20 years. Even without them, the health/medical sector has been as strong as technology."
The WRA, a 30-member unit, publishes a massive occupational projection report every two years.
The 2008-18 report, the most recent one published, shows health and tech jobs with the highest annual growth rates at 4 and 5 percent.
The 2010-20 report comes out next month, and Robson says that jobs trend isn't expected to have changed.
WSU prepares
That sits well with Weber State University, where curriculum is tailored to those areas, says Winn Stanger, the school's head of Career Services.
But Stanger also has a nugget of information that is going to shape the local job market immediately and for years to come:
Fully 50 percent of the workforce at Hill Air Force Base is eligible for retirement over the next five years.
That's out of 23,000 employees, civilian and military, Stanger says. "That's a bright spot."
In anticipation, Weber State added a two-year electrical engineering degree a little over two years ago, he says.
"We graduated our first student from the program in May. Hill has told us they can't hire enough electrical engineers."
WSU is also positioned to staff "the graying of America," Stanger says, as the baby boom starts declining medically.
Health care will be meeting the needs of all the 85-year-olds who, in the past, didn't live past 70 but now are, thanks to medical advances, he says.
"We don't see any downturn in that, particularly with Obamacare putting more people into the system."
Any downturn, even in the current recession, Stanger says, is measured this way: "Our nursing grads, instead of getting three, four offers when they graduate, it's currently only one or two."
Health care professions make up 22 percent of WSU's 25,000-strong student body, he says.
While an aging populace boosts health care, youths will continue to drive technology jobs, Stanger says.
"There's no turning back from the technology boom. Have you got the same cellphone you had two years ago?" he says.
"The kids are so gadget-oriented. They'll pay for cellphone providers what we used to pay for a car 30 years ago. Younger and younger kids are getting cellphones, and they need all the bells and whistles."
Ask them what they would give up, cellphone or transportation, Stanger says, and most will say transportation.
"They'll say, 'I'll ride the bus or my bike to work,' and find a city where they can do that. Computer industries appear to be recession-proof."
Healthy rates
What does the Utah Occupational Projections 2008-18 report of Robson's WRA list as the job with the single highest average annual growth rate over 10 years?
Home health aides, at 7.6 percent. (Warning: The 21-page report on jobs.utah.gov is printed in ridiculously small type.)
The report projects the state's number of home health aides to grow from 6,080 in 2008 to 10,670 by 2018.
Next is network systems and data communications analysts in the computer trades at 7.0 percent, jumping from 1,780 positions in 2008 to 3,020 by 2018.
After that comes biomedical engineers with a 6.8 percent growth rate, increasing from 430 to 730 in the 10-year span of the report.
Next are petroleum engineers at 6.5 percent, the head count jumping from 160 to 270.
In terms of sheer numbers, watch for computer software engineers and their 4.35 average annual growth rate to raise that population from 8,660 in 2008 to 12,470 in 2018.
And watch the legions of registered nurses jump from 19,790 to 27,890 in the same time span, with a 4.1 percent annual growth rate.
Robson points to the construction trades gaining speed in growth "after taking such a big hit from the bursting of the housing bubble in 2008."
Construction has bottomed out, Robson says, and is now growing like the rest of the state's job force, roughly at a projected 2 percent growth rate.
"It's increasing a little, like housing prices," he says. "Barring any significant negative factors, we expect it to continue to gain strength."
The current projections report (2008-18) counts nearly 20,000 construction laborers, close to 19,000 carpenters and almost 6,000 equipment operators to number 24,500, 22,110 and 7,000 by 2018, respectively.
The projections coming out next month have the construction trades growing as fast as health care and computer technology by 2020, Robson says.
But the growth will be steady until then, he says.
"The underlying demographics of Utah promote growth. We still have the highest birth rate in the nation, by far," Robson says.
"And 80 percent of job growth is population growth; we also are attractive to out-of-state businesses moving here because we have the youngest population in the nation."
Utah's median age is 29.2, compared with 37.2 for the U.S. as a whole, Robson says.
"That's huge. We're in a class by ourselves in those two areas."
tmartinez 18 Sep, 2012
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