Leading Economist Forecasts More Jobs Than Workers in Coming Years

As surprising as it sounds in the current employment market, a renowned labor economist projects that there will be more jobs than people to fill them in the United States by 2018.

Assuming a return to healthy economic growth and no change in immigration or labor force participation rates, Barry Bluestone, Dean of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University, predicts that within the next eight years there could be at least 5 million potential job vacancies in the United States, nearly half of them (2.4 million) in social sector jobs in education, health care, government and nonprofit organizations. The loss in total output could limit the growth of needed services and cost the economy as much as $3 trillion over the five-year period beginning in 2018.

“If the baby boom generation retires from the labor force at the same rate and age as current older workers, the baby bust generation that follows will likely be too small to fill many of the projected new jobs,” states Bluestone’s report, After the Recovery: Help Needed – The Coming Labor Shortage and How People in Encore Careers Can Help Solve It.

Bluestone’s research is one of four papers written by independent experts and released today by MetLife Foundation and Civic Ventures, a think tank on boomers, work and social purpose.

The research identifies 15 jobs that will provide the largest number of potential new encore career opportunities in the coming decade. The list is dominated by seven job categories in health care (registered nurses; home health aides; personal and home care aides; nursing aides, orderlies and attendants; medical assistants; licensed practical and vocational nurses; and medical and health service managers); three in education (teachers, teacher assistants and child care workers); others in nonprofits and government (business operations specialists; general and operations managers; and receptionists and information clerks); plus clergy and social and human service assistants.

Click here to read the report.

Source: Washington Post