The Fastest-Growing Employment Areas for 2022

As experts predict the U.S. economy could be heading for a recession, the barometer closely watched is layoffs. It’s a topic that is top of mind today. Layoffs in the tech sector have led the charge, with over 42,000 workers in the U.S. tech market cut in 2022. There is still plenty of good news for the overall job market.

Rachel Neill, with Carex Consulting Group, says, “We’ve had twenty straight months of continued job growth, which is absolutely amazing, and despite a slight rise from 3.5% to 3.7% in unemployment, there are over eleven million unfilled jobs. That’s at least two jobs for every person who could be looking.”

While the number of job openings is on the decline from their record levels during the pandemic, they remain high. “Hiring is still up, there are still jobs out there, and we don’t want people to get alarmed about all the layoffs they are hearing about,” Neill says.

The great resignation, which continues post-pandemic, offsets some job hiring declines. More than four million Americans left their jobs in fifteen of the past seventeen months. This trend hits low-wage sectors particularly hard, but all industries and markets continue to experience workers quitting their jobs for myriad reasons.

Tech may be cooling down, but there are other industries looking for workers, including healthcare. An estimated eighty million health workers will be required to meet demand by 2030. An estimated 20% of health workers in the United States left their jobs during the pandemic, creating a sizeable gap. Health care is hiring. The energy sector is also experiencing some of the fastest employment growth in 2022.

It’s easy to get discouraged with all this layoff talk, but Neill said people need to stay positive. “If you are looking for a job, it’s still a great time to be looking, and I think you will continue to see some of these big companies who maybe had some growth during Covid start to slow down and maybe scale back a bit, but it doesn’t mean that hiring or jobs are limited, or difficult to get at the moment.”