A list that projects Vermont’s most in-demand employment opportunities for the next decade was recently revised. The data includes information on how people can access career training programs to get the jobs.
The Vermont Department of Labor and the McClure Foundation regularly assess what higher paying occupations will be in demand over a decade. With the pandemic reducing or eliminating jobs in industries such as hospitality or food service, a revised list has been released. It identifies more than 60 employment categories expected to pay a $22 per hour median wage and have at least 220 job openings over the decade.
Vermont Department of Labor Economic and Labor Market Information Director Matt Barewicz says this is the fourth version of the brochure which is issued every two years. “What we’re really trying to highlight is the long term trends that are going to be in demand in the economy and the best way to know what we’re going to need in the future is to look at what we need today. And so a lot of these occupations are quite stable really cornerstones of any functioning economic environment. People have housing so they’re going to need different types of construction related fields, plumbers, electricians. Health care is consistently in demand so there’s a wide variety of health care related occupations. Computers and IT staff. We’re really trying to highlight things that are stable so that people can start a training program, complete a training program and still find that their skills are in demand by Vermont employers.”
McClure Foundation Executive Director Carolyn Weir says the list of most promising jobs represents key career fields like health care, the trades, manufacturing and business-to-business services. They also provide information on how to access affordable training programs. "Many of the promising jobs can be accessed with a short term career training program. And so the McClure Foundation has identified seven such programs that we consider best bets for landing a promising job. They’re affordable. They’re short. Most of them are fully online so they’re easily accessible no matter what part of the state you live in. And there’s funding available to reduce tuition for those programs in 2021.”
The Pathways to Promising Careers identifies sectors that aren’t always a prime career choice such as plumbers and mechanics. Barewicz says numerous jobs that pay well often go unfilled. “The impetus behind this whole project was to really highlight the opportunities in the state, some which require college but not all of them and in fact the majority might not. You know the trades is a great example. There continues to be that battle and that stigma associated with working with your hands unfortunately. But if you asked anyone who had a problem with their plumbing or their electrical recently how difficult it is to find and hire somebody you realize how important those skills are to our economy. And that is again why we got together with the McClure Foundation because we were finding good jobs that were going unfilled. We’re really trying to get out a message there’s multiple pathways to success. Some of them involve college and in fact there’s many that do not.”
