Schools, hospitals, and construction: These are the jobs with labor shortages that could stick around for years
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- Labor shortages in healthcare, education, and other fields aren't going away soon.
- Education requirements and lifestyle considerations are two factors for this, an economist said.
- Childcare and skilled trades may also see labor shortages stick around.
The "Great Resignation" of the last few years is largely over as workers and employers alike settle into a new normal better balancing labor supply and demand. But some sectors are set to see labor shortages for years to come.
"For economists, labor shortages are these longer term, enduring structural shortages where labor supply is not able to adapt to changes in demand," Aaron Terrazas, chief economist at Glassdoor, told Insider.
For instance, the education sector has had teacher shortages as people resign or retire. An analysis from Pew Research Center also showed fewer Americans are seeking education degrees. There are other places in the US labor market where there are shortages that aren't likely to be resolved any time soon, such as the nursing shortage within healthcare.
An aging population will make it harder to say goodbye to these problems.
Julia Pollak, chief economist for ZipRecruiter, told Insider the retirement of baby boomers is one long-term challenge employers are up against. The labor force participation rate for those 55 years old and over continued to be below where it was before the pandemic as of September, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
"In many fields, labor shortages are going to get worse, not better," Pollak said.
"While there's a lot that employers can do, boosting pay and benefits, offering more flexibility, advertising at job postings better, there's only so much they can do," Pollak said. "There are many structural barriers that they're coming up against."
And while boosting pay could be one thing employers can do to attract new workers, US inflation has also been too high. Inflation has been cooling, but it's still greater than the Fed's 2% target. But a bit of tightness in parts of the labor market probably won't make inflation worse.
"It's easy to think that the sectors that face long-term labor shortages also face rapidly increasing wages — but that isn't always the case," Terrazas said. "In sectors with enduring labor shortages, businesses face a limited capacity to pass along cost increases to their customers — which means that they are unable to increase wages as quickly as they would like in order to attract new workers to the field."
There are some ways to address long-term shortages. Terrazas said demand for more technology usage or immigrants are responses seen in industries with this problem. Another is relaxing skills needed for a job or the credentials and licensing needed, as these can be barriers for job entry.
Indeed economist Cory Stahle pointed to overlooked talent pools as a way to address labor shortages. That may include workers with disabilities as well as second chance workers, or people reentering the workforce after incarceration and those with criminal records.
And while Stahle also mentioned "productivity enhancing technology like AI" could also help, he noted based on Indeed research there are jobs where generative AI might not be able to do too much, such as in-person jobs.
Below are some of the kinds of work and industries where there may be labor shortages long term.
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Healthcare is one industry Stahle sees long-term labor shortages continuing to be an issue.
"We see the nursing shortage story has been a multi-year story at this point, and we continue to see nurses saying that they want to leave, they're burned out," Stahle said.
Research from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing found that many registered nurses already exited or want to leave the workforce.
"Approximately 100,000 registered nurses (RNs) left the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic in the past two years due to stress, burnout and retirements," an April news release from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing said. "Another 610,388 RNs reported an 'intent to leave' the workforce by 2027 due to stress, burnout and retirement."
Additionally, an aging population will mean more demand for healthcare workers, including in healthcare support jobs. Projection data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed home health and personal care aides are projected to see growth of 804,600 from 2022 to 2032, the most of any job tracked by BLS.
"Healthcare is a classic industry where there are both demand and supply side factors driving labor shortages," Terrazas said.
Required education, licenses, or training are also supply-side barriers that may make it difficult to have more workers fill roles like physicians in this industry, per Terrazas. Terrazas also noted the work of skilled medical professionals "often require big lifestyle sacrifices" like long hours.
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Terrazas said a low level of schedule flexibility is one lifestyle consideration for workers in education, as well as potential licensing barriers, as is the case for some healthcare jobs. Because of this, he said "elementary and secondary schools tend to have a shortage of teachers."
While licensing and education barriers could be behind this shortage prevailing, other changes may need to be made to attract more workers into this sector. A RAND Corporation survey found only 34% of teachers felt their base pay was adequate. Additionally, while 60% of teachers in the survey considering leaving their job said "my salary is too low," 70% of these teachers considering this said "the stress and disappointments of teaching aren't worth it."
Teachers also may have to take into account their spending budget and how much they may have to spend out of pocket on lesson plans, supplies for students, books, and other items.
"We don't ask other professions to try to do their job without the materials they need," one teacher, who shared with Insider some of the items she has had to buy over the years for her classroom like some books and bins, said. "I feel like a lot of teachers are expected to do their job without materials that they have or that they need."
While some older teachers may be deciding it's time to retire, Nela Richardson, chief economist of ADP, told Insider that "younger teachers are not flowing into that profession as much, and they're leaving."
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Terrazas said there are cyclical shortages in construction when it is booming. Otherwise, there can be shortages in skilled trades, such as plumbing, given the skills and training needed for this work.
"In some communities, they are also unionized, which also can limit access to apprenticeships and training opportunities," Terrazas said. "So there's no doubt that when it comes to those skilled vocational trades in construction, some of those areas find shortages."
Richardson said labor and skill shortages are prominent reasons behind the lack of housing inventory.
"When you think about the construction industry, it is a telltale sign to other industries about what happens when there's not a good skilled workforce to replace people who are retiring in that industry," Richardson said. "This could foreshadow labor shortages over the next 10 years as more boomers leave these industries and young people do not follow in."
To help attract workers in construction and elsewhere, Richardson said working on addressing gender pay gaps and "widening the pipeline through education and training" as two things that could help.
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"The child care industry has long faced challenges in finding sufficient workers despite relatively low education and training barriers to entry," Terrazas said.
The BLS website shows childcare workers typically need a high school diploma or equivalent for entry. Terrazas noted the problem finding childcare workers is heavily due to "the physically intensive nature of the work" and can also be due to "the inability to pass along the full cost of labor to customers."
Center- and home-based childcare can cost thousands of dollars annually, based on price data noted in a blog post from the Department of Labor.
"There are no easy solutions to the childcare workforce challenge, particularly in communities where the cost of living is high," Terrazas said.
The Occupational Outlook Handbook from the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that although employment for childcare workers is projected to fall from 2022 to 2032, there will be job openings each year. The BLS website stated "about 153,100 openings for childcare workers are projected each year, on average, over the decade. All of those openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to other occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire."
The pay for workers in this industry could also add to the problem. Stahle said based on Indeed Wage Tracker data that childcare jobs usually note low pay in their open positions compared to other roles posted.
"For years now, the supply of childcare services has struggled to keep up with parents' demands," Stahle said. "To catch up to that would require finding even more workers in a sector that is already facing hiring challenges."
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Leisure and hospitality finally isn't too far off from being back at pre-pandemic employment. Meanwhile, there are parts of the sector where worker demand issues seem to be common. Terrazas pointed to resort towns, like beaches or ski places, where they may have to bring workers to these places a few months each year to meet this demand.
"They tend to be young workers, they tend to be immigrant workers who could go into those seasonal resort towns and do all the services that vacationers require — from cooking to food service, to cleaning rooms, to teaching ski lessons or teaching surfing lessons," Terrazas said, adding these occupations "tend to have long-term shortages."
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Another industry where this problem may be prevalent long term is in natural resources extraction.
Terrazas noted these jobs in mining, logging, and oil work can require "big lifestyle sacrifices." He said not only can these jobs mean working long hours but they can include working outside, and "can be personally risky if you're working with large heavy machinery."
In short, they can be considered "dirty, dangerous, and demanding" jobs, per Terrazas.
Agricultural work is another field where Terrazas said there are often long-term labor shortages. That's because people may be spending a lot of time outside in a physically demanding job.
"In a world where we know temperatures are rising, it is very difficult, potentially physically dangerous work to be tending crops or picking crops in peak harvest season or in summer," Terrazas said.
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Stahle also noted to Insider "industries that are typically staffed by younger workers" like retail as another kind of industry that may be affected by long-term labor shortages.
"As the population growth rate has slowed down, if that trend continues, we're going to see that some sectors like food service and sales and retail and these kind of industries that typically depend on younger workers are really going to have to adapt and maybe change the way that they approach things, or they're going to also be facing those type of labor shortages as well," Stahle said.
Occupational data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2022 shows the median age for waiters and waitresses was 26, around 22 for fast food and counter workers, and around 26 for cashiers.
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