What US job will shrink the most in the next decade?

Cashiers are particularly vulnerable to automation, while things look better for healthcare workers

When a reader recently asked me to look at how many teachers were leaving the occupation, I assumed the numbers would be high. Between wage stagnation and the near impossible working conditions during the height of Covid, I guessed that the outlook for US teaching jobs would be bleak.

The data tells a different story. Yes, a high number of people are exiting the occupation each year (148,000 on average) but the US Bureau of Labor Statistics still expects that a huge number of people will enter the field, too. Over the period from 2021 to 2031, the bureau projects that there will be an additional 230,000 job openings in the US for teachers (including “preschool, elementary, middle, secondary, and special education teachers”). This is partly because of the number of teachers retiring but it’s also because teaching, unlike other US jobs, can’t be replaced with automation any time soon.

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