How The Recession Affected Occupations in Virginia

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Each year, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates how many people are employed in over 500 occupations. They do this for the nation, for individual states, and for metropolitan areas. Using these reports, we're able to see how occupational employment has changed in Virginia over the last five years and how the recession has affected jobs in our state. Overall, the BLS estimates that Virginia lost about 81,000 jobs, or -2%, over this period.

Job Loss

We looked at BLS data from 2006, just before the recession hit, and compared this with the most recently available estimates, those for 2010. Some occupations saw huge job losses during this period. Virginia lost about 20,000 jobs each for Cashiers and General Office Clerks and about 13,000 jobs each for Retail Sales Persons, Laborers, and Carpenters.

VDOE Application for New Programs/Courses

The latest application form for new career and technical education programs/courses was sent out on January 20th in Superintendent's memo #018-12. As always, the form requires you to submit data on labor market and/or employment needs with your application.

There are lots of labor market data resources on this blog and on the CTE Trailblazers website. Also, we at Trailblazers can help you collect the data you need to evaluate the labor market needs and employment prospects for the courses you are considering. Just email or give us a call. CTEtraiblazers@virginia.edu or 434-982-5582.

Career Cluster Predictions: Employment Opportunities in 2018

Related Posts: How the Recession Affected Virginia Why Invest in CTE and STEM Education Requirements for Career Clusters Learn About Career Clusters: Career Clusters at a Glance

The Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) at Georgetown University has come out with another important report this month on how future employment opportunities will correlate with CTE Career Clusters. The report, Career Clusters: Forecasting Demand for High School Through College Jobs, was compiled in conjunction with the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education and the National Association of State Directors of Career and Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc).

The primary motivation for the report was to give the CTE community an idea of the direction the 16 CTE Career Clusters will take over the next few years, and to provide school districts, states, and colleges with data to connect job projections to curriculum and program planning.