September 02, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

New and emerging occupations by industry, 2000

New and emerging occupations arise in a number of industries. According to a recent BLS analysis, more than 40 percent of such occupations were found in services in 2000.

[Chart data—TXT]

The services industry group consists of several sectors, including health, social services, legal assistance, as well as personal, business, and amusement and recreation services. Together they accounted for about 38 percent of 2000 employment and about 41 percent of new and emerging occupations.

New and emerging occupations in the health, social service, and legal assistance industries included alternative health therapists, bereavement counselors, and conflict of interest specialists.

Transportation and public utilities had the second highest percentage of new and emerging occupations, some having to do with airport security, followed by manufacturing. One emerging job related to manufacturing was “due diligence” analysis of engineering and production processes during acquisitions.

These data are from the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics program. To learn more, see Occupational Employment and Wages, 2001, Bulletin 2559, June 2003.