The U.S. labor market is bracing for a decade of slower overall growth, but a handful of industries and occupations are set to expand at a breakneck pace, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
From 2025 to 2035, total employment will edge up by 5.9 million jobs to 176.2 million, representing growth of just 3.5%—a fraction of the 10.9% pace during the prior decade, BLS said in a report late last month.
As the AI boom continues to ripple through the economy, the utility industry is expected to hire at the fastest rate, growing employment by 9.8%. That’s as hyperscalers scramble to build data centers that require immense amounts of electricity.
“Nearly all the job growth is expected from electric power generation, transmission, and distribution due to increasing demand for electricity, including artificial intelligence power demands,” BLS said.
Within that category, certain sub-sectors will see even bigger employment gains, with solar electric power generation up 153% and wind electric power generation up 62%.
While the additional hiring by utilities should translate to 58,800 jobs, that will be dwarfed by the healthcare and social assistance industry, which will expand employment by 2.2 million over the next decade.
It will be the second-fastest hiring sector with a 9.5% growth rate and will account for 37% of all new jobs created through 2035.
“Strong employment growth is expected to stem from both the aging population and the increasing prevalence of chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes,” BLS said.
Among individual occupations, nurse practitioners will see a 41% surge in employment, while medical and health services managers will jump 24%.
And despite fears that AI will wipe out employment in software and programming, tech talent will be high demand too.
In fact, the professional, scientific, and technical services industry is projected to be the third-fastest growing sector, up 8.6%, and add the second most jobs, 926,700.
As businesses lean on AI tools to boost operations and decision-making, the number of data scientists is expected to grow 34.6%, with computer and information research scientists up 21.8%.
Those forecasts add hope for office workers after top AI leaders previously signaled a jobs apocalypse was imminent. But even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have walked back some of their earlier prophesies, albeit ahead of blockbuster IPOs.
To be sure, AI will still weigh on employment elsewhere. The office and administrative support sector will see a 4% drop, or 752,100 jobs, the most of any major occupational group.
The sales and related occupations sector will fall by 1.4% as e-commerce continue to expand and AI tools are incorporated further into the business processes.
“Although the growing adoption of AI is expected to support demand for some occupations, associated productivity gains may dampen employment demand for others,” BLS said.
“The use of generative AI software, which can be leveraged to automate repetitive tasks and speed up certain processes, may limit demand for some jobs in the arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupational group.”
