Healthcare, Technology, Business Expected to Add Most Jobs in Detroit

News recently broke that the City of Detroit did not make the short list as a possible location for the second Amazon Headquarters. The reason why? Some said it was concern over the region’s ability to attract talent in a sustainable and long-term way and lack of a robust transit system. While Amazon may not be moving to Detroit, this post highlights what talent the Metro-Detroit Region is expected to foster through 2024.

The data in this post is from the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget and highlights what industries and occupations that Department predicts will grow and lose positions between 2014 and 2024 in the Detroit Metro area.

The data below shows expected growth rates, by percentage and numbers, for all the major industries. According to the data, the construction industry is expected to the experience the overall largest growth rate in the Metro-Detroit region at 14 percent. When digging deeper into the data we see that the sub-industries of heavy civil engineering construction and specialty trade contractors had among the highest projected growth rates at 23.1 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively (see Chart 2).   The professional and business services industry is projected to have the second highest growth rate at 13 percent. This growth is largely supported by the 17.2 percent growth rate projected for the professional, technical and scientific sub-industry, which is categorized under professional business services. Just as heavy civil engineering construction ranked atop the projected growth list for the sub-industries, the professional, technical and scientific sub-industry ranked second (see Chart 2).

When examining the raw numbers, professional and business services is expected to add the largest number of industry jobs at about 48,000. The professional, technical and scientific sub-industry makes up about 32,000 of these positions. As shown in Chart 3 though, professional, technical and scientific sub-industry ranks second when examining the numbers, the health care and social assistance industry ranks at the top with an anticipated number of about 33,000 positions to be added.

The only major industry in the region that is expected to experience a loss is government. The data projects a 3 percent loss of positions between 2014 and 2024. When looking at the sub-industry data we see that that loss is anticipated to come from the federal government side, as highlighted in the Chart 3. The Postal Service is expected to experience a 21.1 percent loss, or about 2,000 jobs, and the federal government is expected experience a 3.5 percent loss, or about 2,600 jobs (see Chart 5). The only government sub-industry that is projected to experience growth between 2014 and 2024 is local government; this sub-industry is expected to have a 2.2 percent growth rate.

In addition to examining industry growth in Metro-Detroit we are also looking into occupational growth. The first chart below, Chart 4, shows the projected percentage growth, or decline, of each major industry as defined by the the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget. The Computer and Mathematical Occupations has the highest projected rate of growth at about 18 percent and among the highest number of anticipated jobs to be added at about 11,600 (Chart 6).

The Healthcare Support Occupations has the second highest anticipated growth rate at 16 percent, but it is the Healthcare Practitioners Occupation that is expected to add the most number of positions, as shown in Chart 7, at 12,785. For the Computer and Mathematical Occupations category, the sub-occupations of Statistician and Operations Research Analyst ranked among the highest for project growth at 41 and 37 percent, respectively, but combined these two occupations are expected to add a total of 470 jobs. As shown in Chart 9, Mechanical Engineers (5,280), Home Health Aides (4,815) and Customer Service Representatives (4,735) are the top three sub-occupations expected to add the highest number of positions between 2014 and 2024 (the number of positions expected to be added through sub-occupations combined are the total number of positions expected to be added to the occupation categories).

The sub-occupation that ranked highest for expected rate of growth was credit councilor, which has a projected growth rate of 41.7 percent, as shown in Chart 8. Credit Councilors fall under the Business and Financial Operations Occupation and are expected to add 340 jobs.

The final two charts in this post show that the occupations with the largest anticipated rate of decline are those that are becoming obsolete, largely due to technology. For example, in Chart 9, the percentage of telephone operators needed between 2014 and 2024 is expected to decline by 48 percent and the percentage of photographic processors is expected to decline by 38 percent. When examining just the numbers, as shown in Chart 10, bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks are expected to lose the largest total number of positions at 1,245, followed by postal service mail carrier (900) and press machine setters and operators (840).

Overall, this data set shows that healthcare and business, including computer technologies, and construction are the industries expected to support predicted job growth in Metro-Detroit through 2024, with the occupations that support these industries expected to follow similar growth.

It is important that numbers versus percentages be paid attention to when understanding the economic future of Detroit, because, as our post shows, percentage of growth for certain occupations may be high but a further look at the numbers shows that the total number of positions currently available and expected to be offered in the future remain small in some of these categories with high percentage increases.

But, both the raw numbers and percentages for healthcare, business and computer and construction industries and occupations give some idea of the future of jobs in the Detroit area over the next six years.

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