We have come to the final issue of Trends for the calendar year 1996. There has been a broad spectrum of topics covered in this year's issues. January started the year looking at how small business is a major portion of Wyoming’s economy. Subsequent articles focused on job stress, starting a new career or business, and Wyoming economic indicators. The May and June Trends contained a two-part article and analysis on the relation of age and gender to employment in Wyoming. The July and August issues also included a two-part article, this one on unemployment insurance benefit qualification. The yearly wage survey was the topic in the September issue. The final two articles discussed how changing jobs can be financially beneficial and additional demographics of the Wyoming labor force.

This final article of 1996 will look at the projected future of Wyoming’s employment opportunities. The base year data is from 1994 and the projected year is 1998. This article will focus on answering questions about the short-term future of occupations in Wyoming. What occupations are expected to grow? What occupations are projected to decline? Which occupations currently make up large percentages of the Wyoming labor force?

Please Note: Occupational groups referred to in this article are formed according to Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) codes. The five-digit OES codes are included immediately following each occupation discussed in the text (for example: Cooks, Fast Food-65032). These are the same codes used in the Wyoming Wage Survey, so the reader may refer to the September 1996 issue of Trends to examine detailed wage information for Wyoming workers.

All Occupations as a Whole: Total growth in Wyoming is projected to be 20,341 new jobs over the four-year period from 1994 to 1998, which is 5,130 growth openings per year. This includes 367 occupations that are projected to have positive growth and 56 occupations that are projected to have no growth over the four-year period. In contrast, there are 204 occupations that are projected to decline, for a negative growth of 5,671 jobs over this period or 1,438 annually. Using these figures, we see that Wyoming is projected to have an overall net growth of 14,670 jobs or 3,692 jobs per year. If this level of net growth is realized, Wyoming will increase the level of workers from 215,480 to 230,150 by 1998. The following subgroups of occupations have been organized so that they appear in order of the projected number increase in jobs.

Professional, Paraprofessional and Technical Occupations--Subgroup {20000 & 30000}: As shown in Table 1, this subgroup is projected to have growth of 4,169 jobs over the four-year period, which will be the largest increase in employment of all the subgroups. The base year level of employment was 41,041 jobs, which accounted for 19.0 percent of employment covered by Unemployment Insurance (UI) in Wyoming. With the projected increase in employment, the subgroup will increase to 19.6 percent of the total covered employment in the state. This subgroup has 26.8 percent (171 out of 637) of the total occupations in the state. Out of the 171 occupations, 12 occupations are in the top 50 (see Table 2) and 66 are in the top 200, which accounts for 33.0 percent of the top 200 occupations. These include: Teachers, Secondary School-31308; Teachers, Special Education-31311; Registered Nurses-32502; Accountants & Auditors-21114; and Human Service Workers-27308. There are only 27 occupations that are projected to decline. This combination of the number of growth occupations relative to declining occupations means that this subgroup has great prospects for the future.

Service Occupations--Subgroup 60000: This subgroup only has 9.9 percent (63 out of 637) of the total set of occupations, but is boasting 13 of the top 50 annual growth occupations or 26.0 percent of these occupations (see Table 1 and Table 2). The projected actual growth for these 13 occupations is 3,848 new jobs over the four-year period or 962 per year. These 13 occupations in this subgroup are, therefore, projected to account for 18.9 percent of growth and 26.2 percent of net growth overall. This subgroup had 19.5 percent of total covered employment in 1994. The top projected actual growth occupation comes from this subgroup: Waiters and Waitresses-65008, which is projected to increase by 1,365 new jobs from the end of 1994 to the end of 1998. This subgroup also has the eighth fastest projected actual growth occupation in Cooks, Fast Food-65032, which is projected to increase at a rate of 91 jobs per year or 364 over the four-year period. This subgroup is projected to increase by 3,985 jobs over the next four years. If the projections hold true, the Service Occupations subgroup will have 20.0 percent of the employment at the end of 1998.

Production, Construction, Operating, Maintenance and Material Handling Occupations--Subgroup {80000 & 90000}: This subgroup, as shown in Figure 1, has some real contrasts within the group. It not only holds the third highest projected increase in covered employment over the four years, but it also has the most declining occupations (see Table 3) by far and the second largest projected decrease in percentage of covered employment. These factors occur due to the large number of occupations (273 out of 637, or 42.9 percent) in this subgroup and the high amount of employment from the base year (57,089 jobs). While boasting 13 out of the top 50 (26.0 percent) projected growth occupations and 62 out of the top 200 (31.0 percent), it also has 109 of the 204 (53.2 percent) declining occupations. Although Construction and other special trade occupations have been surging in Wyoming and across the U.S. over the past few years, there are other occupations covered in this subgroup, such as oil production occupations, which have been declining. This fact gives rise to the contrasting numbers within the subgroup.

Sales and Related Occupations--Subgroup 40000: The fourth largest projected growth subgroup in covered employment over the four years is the Sales and Related Occupations subgroup with 2,468 projected new openings. If the projections hold true, this subgroup will also have the third highest increase in percentage of covered employment from 10.3 percent of the total covered employment to 10.7 percent. The Sales and Related Occupations subgroup only has 21 occupations out of the 637 (3.3%), but many of these are large employers as can be noted by the base year total of 22,188 jobs. Some of the larger base year employing occupations include Marketing and Sales Supervisors-41002 (2,367 jobs), Retail Salespersons-49011 (6,953 jobs), Cashiers-49023 (5,488 jobs) and Sales Floor Stock Clerks-49021 (1,797 jobs).

Managerial and Administrative Occupations--Subgroup 10000: This subgroup should have moderate growth over the four-year period. It is projected to have a net increase of 488 jobs per year or 1,947 jobs over the four-year period. The Managerial and Administrative Occupations subgroup have 20 of the 637 occupations (3.1%). This subgroup has four in the top 50 projected growth occupations and three in the top 50 declining occupations. The other 13 occupations are spread uniformly throughout the group. This accounts for the subgroup's projected steady growth over the four-year period.

Agricultural, Forestry, Fishing and Related Occupations--Subgroup 70000: This is the subgroup projected to have the least amount of change in covered employment over the four-year period; it has the smallest number of occupations (18 of the 637) out of the seven subgroups. None of these occupations are in the top 50 projected growth occupations or in the top 50 projected declining occupations. The base year employment registers only 2,478 jobs. This is due to the fact that many agricultural-type industries are not required to file under Unemployment Insurance, therefore, these workers do not show up in the covered employment figures. The factors of a low number of occupations, no occupations projected to post large increases or decreases and low covered employment cause this subgroup to have small but steady amounts of projected growth (39 jobs per year).

Clerical and Administrative Support Occupations--Subgroup 50000: This final subgroup is the only group projected to have negative growth over the four-year period (see Figure 2). Even though the subgroup reported a projected negative growth in employment, it still would be considered the fourth largest employer of the seven subgroups based on total employment. This subgroup also had the third highest amount of occupations (71 of the 637). Out of those seventy-one occupations, 41 are projected to decline and 21 are in the top 50 projected declining occupations (see Table 3). This subgroup includes the numbers one, three, five, eight and nine largest projected declining occupations. These include: Bookkeeping, Accounting and Audit Clerks-55338 (524 fewer jobs); All Other Clerical and Administrative Workers-59999 (402 fewer jobs); Bank Tellers-53102 (230 fewer jobs); Computer Operators, Except Peripheral-56011 (141 fewer jobs); and Typists, Including Word Processing-55307 (125 fewer jobs). This subgroup is projected to decline by a total of 302 jobs per year or 1,222 over the four year period. This will cause a large decline in the percentage of total employment from 15.9 percent to 14.3 percent.

One can see that there are some large changes and shifts projected in the near future for Wyoming’s economy. This article focused specifically on the occupational side of the picture. By looking at the industry side, one can get a better feel of why some of these shifts in occupations may be occurring. A detailed look at both the occupational and the industry side of the picture is contained in the publication from which this excerpt was taken: Wyoming 1994 - Wyoming 1998--What Does the Future Have in Store for Wyoming’s Labor Market? Please contact Valerie A. Davis to receive a copy. The publication is also available on the Internet via Research & Planning's home page.

Lee Saathoff is a Statistician specializing in Labor Market Information (LMI) with Research & Planning.

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