The U.S. Departments of Transportation, Education, and Labor released a joint report entitled “Strengthening Skills Training and Career Pathways across the Transportation Industry.” The report details the future growth areas or employment “hot spots” in transportation by industry subsectors, occupations, career areas and geographic areas. It also identifies good-paying, high-demand transportation jobs and analyzes the patterns in the education and work experience required for entry, including on-the-job training requirements for new entrants to gain full competency.
The report indicates that employers will need to hire and train a total of 4.6 million new workers – 1.2 times the current transportation workforce – due to expected growth, retirements, and turnover in the transportation industry from 2012 to 2022. Projections suggest that 417,000 of these positions will be created as a direct result to increased demand on our transportation systems. The highest percentage of these jobs will be in transit and ground passenger transportation and these new openings will be concentrated in the West Coast, the Gulf Coast, the upper Mid-Atlantic, several Mountain States and the Midwest.
Much of the regional transportation job growth is driven by growth in the large metropolitan areas within those regions – the highest number of job openings in transportation will likely be generated in New York City, Dallas, Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago. In addition, these jobs will pay relatively well. Thirteen out of the top 20 highest demand transportation jobs pay above the median wage, sometimes substantially.
For every future job opening in central services or construction in the transportation industry, there will be an estimated two jobs in maintenance and 21 in operations. The recruitment and training of new and current workers responsible for the operation, maintenance, and construction of America’s transportation infrastructure will be critical to maintaining a system that meets our economic and security needs in the 21st century global economy.
