US workforce to expand just 0.4% a year in coming decade
THE US labour market is expected to grow by 0.4 per cent a year till 2033, less than one-third of the pace in the preceding decade, according to new Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projections.
The annual rate translates to 6.7 million additional jobs over the decade, or about 55,000 a month, the BLS said in a report published on Thursday (Aug 29).
The main driver is slower population growth. The BLS forecasts that the “non-institutional population” – which excludes categories like prisoners or people in military service – will rise by 16.4 million till 2033 inclusive. That is about five million fewer than in the previous decade, and it translates to the slowest growth rate that the bureau has projected since it began publishing the data in 1948.
One implication of the slowdown is that older people will make up a larger share of the population. Since those Americans are less likely to be working, the overall labour force participation rate is projected to fall some 1.4 percentage points over the decade to 61.2 per cent, with both men and women experiencing declines.
The ageing population, along with “a higher prevalence of chronic conditions, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes”, is expected to drive employment growth in the health care and social assistance industry, the BLS said.
Meanwhile, the declining numbers of younger cohorts – including school-age children – is expected to reduce demand for jobs in education.
The BLS also projects a 0.2 per cent annual decline in retail employment, driven by technological advances and the spread of e-commerce. It expects that automated systems including AI will lead to fewer jobs for office and administrative support workers.
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