The jobs the pandemic may devastate

Projecting how many peo- ple will work in hundreds of detailed occupations in 2029 is a bold exercise — even without the uncertainty of the pandemic.

But labor experts within the U.S. government try to do just that. And their latest assessment of which jobs will grow over the next decade has alarming implications for jobs requiring less education — while also fore- casting a boom for public health researchers and other health-science jobs.

That assessment, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, emphasizes all the uncer- tainty that accompanies projections, and it stresses that these are estimates of structural changes, not forecasts of cyclical booms and busts.

The original BLS projections, made last year without taking pandemic effects into account, called for cumulative economywide job growth of 3.7% from 2019 to 2029.

The new pandemic-info r med pro jec t ions cut that to 2.9% in the “moder- ate impact” pandemic outlook and 1.9% in the “strong impact” one.

Both of these new outlooks assume more remote work and higher demand for relevant technology services; less in-person entertainment and travel; and more investment in public health than would have happened with- out the pandemic.

In the “strong impact” projection, there would be 25% more public health research- ers in 2029 than the original baseline projection for 2029, the largest increase among nearly 800 detailed occu- pations. The 10 occupations with the biggest increase in projected employment relative to the baseline projection are all in medical, health-science and technology fields.

The 10 occupations with the largest declines relative to the baseline projection include restaurant, hotel and transportation jobs.

On balance, the new projections modestly speed up the occupational shifts from the original baseline projec- tions. For instance, the pan- demic is poised to accelerate the originally projected fast growth in software developer jobs and to hasten a previously expected decline in cashier jobs.

For the most part, the sectors originally projected to grow fastest over the next decade in the baseline projection — like nurse practitioners, home health aides and many other health care occupations — are still projected to grow fastest.

The 10 occupations with the largest declines relative to the baseline projection include restaurant, hotel and transportation jobs.