WASHINGTON — The professions expected to show one of the biggest job growth rates in 2017 and the largest growth in sheer number of jobs will be trade skills, according to a year-end report from CareerBuilder and labor market data provider Emsi.
The U.S. economy is expected to add just over 1 million new jobs in fields such as electrician, plumber and HVAC technician in 2017. That’s a job growth rate of 8 percent. The average hourly earnings for professionals in those fields will be $21.38, or about $45,000 a year in 2017, the report says.
While skills trades generally don’t require a college degree, they do require significant training, through apprenticeship programs and both in-class and on-the-job experience.
The professional category that will show the largest job growth rate in 2017 will be information technology. CareerBuilder says that field will add 472,000 jobs next year, for a growth rate of 12 percent. In demand jobs in that field will include data scientists, user interface developers and mobile software engineers.
Business and financial operations, health care and sales also make CareerBuilder’s list of the five top professions for job growth and opportunities in 2017.
“Our research shows that employers are very invested in expanding head count in areas such as analytics and data science, product development and sales as they strive to stay competitive in B2B and B2C markets,” said CareerBuilder CEO Matt Ferguson.
“Skilled laborers will also see high employment demand in the year ahead as will workers in clinical roles,” he said.
CareerBuilder and Emsi used a variety of national and state employment resources as well as online job postings to come up with their list of 2017’s best jobs. The full list is below:
