Second port of call – Labor Statistics

In our first port of call, demographics, we cautioned that the United States will face a tsunami of aging boomers that will likely retire at the age of 65. In 2030, ALL boomers will be 65 or older and can enroll in various social programs to carry them forward into retirement.

The logical question to ask next then is how will 70 million people leaving the workforce impact the existing business landscape and economy. To answer that question we can review handy statistics but the Bureau of Labor Statistics to take a look at current and moving trends. The BLS maintains very well structured data that can be viewed as HTML, PDF, or EXCEL spreadsheets to manipulate and compute an analysis. The current demographics table can be found here. We downloaded the data and performed some rough estimates as to which jobs would have minor deficiencies, major deficiencies and which had surplus of projected workers.

This was calculated by looking at different cohort groups and making some basic assumptions that most people in the Generation X cohort would remain on the same career path and back fill the roles that boomers left behind as they retire. We did NOT assume the same for cohorts younger than generation Xers because the economy changes too rapidly to expect the youngest cohorts of Millennials and Generation Zers to stay on the same career path. To illustrate this example, just remember that the Internet did not exist in 1980 and was very rudimentary (modem dial up) through most of the 90s. It wasn’t until the 2000s when businesses became heavily reliant on online activity to conduct business. To expect that technology will not fundamentally advance or change within the next 10 years would lead to very skewed results in our analysis.

What did our initial analysis show. Looking at the next 10 to 15 years:

Major deficiencies of workers

• Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers
• Buyers and purchasing agents, farm products
• Clergy
• Judges, magistrates, and other judicial workers
• Library technicians
• Floral designers
• Musicians and singers
• Podiatrists
• Crossing guards and flaggers
• School bus monitors
• Hosts and hostesses, restaurant, lounge and coffee shop
• Other entertainment attendants and related workers
• Postal service workers (all kinds)
• Legal secretaries and administrative assistants
• Construction and building inspectors
• Tailors, dressmakers and sewers
• Drivers (bus, transit, school, truck)
• Motor vehicle operators

Minor deficiencies of workers

• Property appraisers and assessors
• Tax prepares
• Mathematicians
• Conservation scientists and foresters
• Astronomers and physicists
• Survey researchers
• Sociologists
• Court reporters and simultaneous captioners
• Models, demonstrators, and product promoters
• Gambling cage workers
• Brokerage clerks
• Credit authorizes, checkers and clerks
• Virtually all construction trades

Surplus of workers

• Human resource manager
• Education and childcare administrators
• Claims adjusters, appraisers, examiners and investigators
• Cost estimators
• Project management specialists
• Market research analysts and marketing specialists
• Computer occupations (all)
• Community and social service occupations
• Social workers
• Post-secondary teachers
• Pre-school and kindergarten teachers
• Elementary and middle school teachers
• Other teachers and instructors
• Graphic designers
• Police officers (did covid affect this?)
• Chefs and head cooks
• Food preparation workers
• Landscaping and grounds keeping workers
• Childcare workers
• Retail workers & salespersons
• Sales representatives
• Stockers and order fillers

As we reviewed the data there are discernible patterns emerging. In a society where the population is aging and the birth rate and fertility rate is dropping it makes sense that we would have a huge surplus of teachers, child care workers and related professions. And as rural people move to urban centers, it makes sense that agriculture will have huge deficiencies in workers in the coming decade. This has been a pattern for the past two decades and there is little reason for it to change now.

If you are an enterprising person interested in starting a business, this data might help you navigate your way to where opportunities can be found in filling the gaps and earning a living. If you are an investor, this information is invaluable in understanding which business models will struggle over the next decade trying to hire people to perform the needed work.

This data is also helpful in understanding which professions will drive spending and which ones will wane. This information begs obvious questions:

Who will do the agricultural work needed to feed America?

What companies will be profitable in agriculture and which one will fail? Hint: the ones that can automate will be better off than those that don’t automate.

We would encourage you to take a look at the data and look at your own profession and ask if you are positioned to grow in your career or potentially be drowned in a sea of surplus profession. NOW is the time to take a look and plan ahead.

As stated in our first port of call, demographics, we are on a journey through rough economic seas ahead and we need to take ever growing amounts of data to analyze and project the best course of action for our investment portfolios. Don’t worry, we are building toward something here and we must first learn to tie knots before we head out to the open sea.