Covid19’s impact on job markets.

COVID-19’s Impact on the Job Market:
The coronavirus has disrupted the global economy like never before. As per McKinsey & Company’s (2020, August 27) latest briefing, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of all countries is directly linked to their ability to control the virus: for “near zero countries”, economic activity has returned to normal, however, in countries like the US, the GDPhas taken a massive hit like never before.

The first two quarters have shown a historical drop in United States’ GDP and this usually triggers and is often a sign of an impending recession which in turn affects layoffs, job creation in all sectors, business revenues and consumer spending. Hence, it is all the more important for students to take a calculated decision about the majors they want to pursue after taking into consideration the various job and market growth statistics from multiple sources.

The table presented down below has been compiled from “Projection Central’s” latest available data for the United States. The table has been sorted by the % change in the projected number of jobs that will be created in 2018-2028.

It is also extremely crucial for students to pay attention to the number of additional jobs that are projected to be created for each occupation code apart from just % change. For example, although the growth rate of petroleum engineering (2.4%) is greater than that of aerospace engineering (1.6%), the average number of annual openings are only 2500 for petroleum engineers as opposed to 4500 for aerospace engineers. Often students make the mistake of choosing majors that have high projected growth rates without considering their industry’s size and job saturation points. It is also no surprise that highest number of annual job openings are for personal care aides given the current pandemic. Another interesting top contender for the highest percent changes (31.5%) in job creation is information security analysis which is fueled by the current global transition into a digital economy wherein the security of computer networks, information systems and cloud computing will play a crucial role.




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