It’s no secret that the U.S. unemployment rate peaked at 14.7% in April 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak — up from a pre-pandemic rate of just 3.5% in February 2020. As the job market continues to rebound with the vaccine rollout and the recent wave of federal aid, which could help many Americans prepare for financial emergencies and boost their savings, Americans looking to be strategic about their job searches would do well to examine employment trends over the last few years to see where the most robust opportunities may exist. Given that some sectors have seen more expansion while others shrank — with varied changes depending on location — SmartAsset took a closer look at the fastest-growing jobs and the fastest-disappearing jobs in each state.
This is the fifth version of SmartAsset’s study of the fastest-growing jobs in each state. Check out the 2020 version here.
To do this, we looked at information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for 2016 and 2020 for all 50 states. It should be noted that the 2020 data only partially accounts for the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as responses were collected from November 2019 to May 2020. For details on our data sources and how we put all the information together to create our analysis, check out the Data and Methodology section below.
Key Findings
- Education jobs are both increasing and disappearing, depending on location, but growth is more robust than decline. Jobs that fall within the broader category of education, training and library occupations comprise many of the fastest-growing and the fastest-disappearing jobs across the 50 states. These jobs are the fastest-disappearing job type in eight states and the fastest-growing job type in seven states. In the states where these are the fastest-disappearing jobs, they saw an average decline of 71.57% (with the steepest decrease at 82.61% for secondary school career/technical education teachers in Montana). In states where these are the fastest-growing jobs, they saw an average increase of 276.75% (with a high of 466.67% for postsecondary agricultural sciences teachers in Illinois).
- Jobs are growing almost 4.5 times faster than they are shrinking. The average increase for the growing jobs in this study is 333.00%, while the average rate of shrinkage was only 74.89%.
The Fastest-Growing Jobs in Each State
Education is the leading industry for growing occupations nationwide (even though it is an industry that has seen steep decline in particular states). All told, seven states in this study have occupations in education at the top of their list. As an example, postsecondary nursing instructors make up the fastest-growing occupation in Alaska. In Nebraska, foreign language and literature teachers have grown faster than any other occupation, and in Oklahoma, archivists have outgrown all other jobs.
There are two different job types that are the fastest-growing occupations in multiple states. Bailiffs are the fastest-growing job in both Kansas and Maryland, while psychiatric technicians are the fastest-growing occupation in Nevada and New Jersey (as well as the District of Columbia).
The state with the top fastest-growing occupation is California, where the number of hoist and winch operators (who use these machines to lift and pull loads using power-operated cable equipment) has grown by more than 1,487%.
The Fastest-Disappearing Jobs in Each State
Office and administrative support occupations are the fastest-shrinking jobs in 10 different states. Some of the specific occupations that are shrinking include:
- Meter readers for utilities in California
- Word processors and typists in Delaware
- Correspondence clerks in Florida
- Proofreaders and copy markers in Washington
- File clerks in New Hampshire
There are five other occupations which are the fastest-shrinking jobs in more than one state:
- Photographic process workers and processing machine operators in Alabama, Ohio and Pennsylvania
- Word processors and typists in Delaware, Missouri and Mississippi
- Career/technical education teachers in Arizona and Montana
- Bailiffs in Colorado and Utah
- Library technicians in Vermont and Rhode Island
In Idaho, the number of demonstrators and product promoters has shrunk by more than 88%, the biggest drop in this study.
Data and Methodology
To find the fastest-growing and fastest-disappearing occupations for each state and the District of Columbia, we looked at employment data from 2016 and compared it to 2020. The 2020 data only accounts for the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in part as responses were collected from November 2019 to May 2020. We filtered out any occupation for which the standard error for the estimated number of people employed in the occupation was greater than 20. We also filtered out any occupation with “other” in the title. To rank the occupations, we considered the percentage change in people employed in each occupation during this period.
All data, including earnings data, comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupation Employment Statistics.
Financial Planning Tips for Workers
- Need advice for a career change? If you are thinking about changing jobs, a financial advisor can help you manage multiple retirement accounts from different employers and create a financial plan to keep your retirement and investing goals on track. SmartAsset’s free tool connects you with financial advisors in five minutes. If you’re ready to be connected with advisors get started now.
- Taxes don’t have to be taxing. A career change may end up being what is best for some people. With that, you’ll likely have a new salary. See how much of it you can expect to give to the government using SmartAsset’s free tax calculator.
- Use your budget to prepare for hard times. A budget can be a great tool for planning for unexpected expenses. You can use the budget to set up an emergency fund you can rely on if you lose your paycheck for a period of time.
Questions about our study? Contact press@smartasset.com.
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