BLS projects total employment, including wage-and-salary workers and self-employed workers, to rise from 169.96 million in 2024 to 175.17 million in 2034. The projected gain is meaningful, but it marks a substantially slower expansion than in the preceding decade, when employment grew 13.0%.

The slowdown reflects demographic constraints as much as economic demand. BLS expects slower growth in the civilian population, an aging workforce, and a lower overall labor-force participation rate. Participation among Americans age 16 and older is projected to fall from 62.6% in 2024 to 61.1% in 2034.

This means the next decade’s labor market is likely to be defined less by broad-based workforce expansion and more by competition for workers in industries where demand is rising faster than labor supply.

Healthcare and social assistance is expected to be the dominant source of job creation. BLS projects the sector will add 1.98 million wage-and-salary jobs from 2024 to 2034, equal to nearly two-fifths of all projected payroll employment growth.

Employment in the sector is projected to rise 8.4%, almost three times the 3.1% growth rate forecast for total employment. BLS attributes the expansion largely to an aging population and a greater prevalence of chronic conditions.

Several of the occupations with the largest projected job gains are tied directly to that trend:

The healthcare expansion will not be concentrated only in highly paid clinical roles. Home health and personal care aides, the largest projected source of new jobs, had a 2024 median annual wage of $34,900. By comparison, nurse practitioners had a median wage of $129,210, while medical and health services managers earned $117,960. The sector’s growth will therefore increase demand across a wide range of education, licensing, wage, and skill levels.

The second-largest source of projected job gains is professional, scientific, and technical services, which is expected to add 812,500 jobs, a 7.5% increase. The information sector is projected to grow 6.5%, while computer and mathematical occupations are expected to expand 10.1%, more than three times the all-occupation average.

Among detailed occupations, BLS projects strong growth for:

These figures point to sustained demand for software development, data analysis, cybersecurity, and technology leadership. Software developers had a 2024 median annual wage of $133,080, while computer and information systems managers had a median of $171,200.

Still, the labor market is not becoming exclusively technology-led. BLS projects that STEM occupations will add 870,000 jobs and grow 8.1%, but non-STEM occupations are projected to add 4.34 million jobs. The largest employment opportunities will continue to span care, management, logistics, food service, construction, and other service-intensive fields.

The national employment outlook extends well beyond healthcare and technology. Several large sectors are projected to post solid net gains:

Construction laborers are projected to gain 106,500 jobs, while electricians are expected to add 77,400. The accommodation and food-services sector is projected to add more than half a million jobs, supported by gains for fast-food and counter workers, restaurant cooks, and food-service supervisors.

The breadth of this growth matters. It suggests that employers across the economy will continue to compete for workers with practical, occupation-specific capabilities, not only for workers with advanced technical degrees.

The projected expansion will be uneven. BLS expects employment to fall in several occupational groups where technology, changing consumer behavior, and productivity improvements reduce staffing needs.

Office and administrative support occupations are projected to decline by 761,900 jobs, or 3.9%. Sales and related occupations are expected to fall by 297,800 jobs, while production occupations are projected to decline by 99,600.

The largest projected detailed occupation declines include:

Retail trade as a sector is projected to lose 181,900 jobs, even as the broader economy grows. Manufacturing employment is expected to be essentially unchanged, with a projected decline of roughly 400 jobs over the decade.

These figures do not mean that existing jobs will disappear immediately or that employers will stop hiring in these fields. Rather, they indicate that BLS expects fewer workers to be needed in these occupations by 2034 than in 2024. Employers in routine administrative, transactional, and retail roles will likely have greater incentives to redesign workflows, invest in technology, and retrain employees for higher-value work.

The projected addition of 5.2 million jobs should not be confused with the total number of employment opportunities available over the period.

BLS projects an average of 18.9 million occupational openings per year between 2024 and 2034. Most will arise not from newly created jobs, but from the need to replace workers who retire, leave the labor force, or move to different occupations.

This distinction is important for employers and job seekers. Even an occupation with little or no net employment growth may still generate substantial hiring because of worker turnover and retirements. Fast-food and counter workers, home health and personal care aides, retail salespersons, cashiers, and stockers are among the occupations expected to have the most annual openings.

For workforce planners, the central challenge is not simply creating enough jobs. It is ensuring that enough workers have the skills, credentials, mobility, and wages needed to fill jobs that are expected to remain difficult to staff.

The BLS outlook describes a labor market that is still growing, but at a slower pace and with a clearer divide between expanding and contracting job categories.

Healthcare will be the main engine of employment growth. Professional services, software, data, cybersecurity, and management roles will expand faster than the national average. Construction, logistics, food service, and other in-person services will continue to generate substantial hiring needs. At the same time, routine administrative, sales, and cashier roles are projected to shrink.

The key implication for business leaders is that labor availability may remain tight in the occupations that matter most to growth. For workers, the opportunity is not limited to one industry or education path, but it increasingly favors roles tied to care delivery, technical capability, management, skilled trades, and services that are difficult to automate or outsource.

BLS’s projections are a long-term structural benchmark, not a year-by-year forecast. They are built from assumptions about labor-force growth, macroeconomic conditions, industry output, productivity, and occupational staffing patterns. But the direction is clear: by 2034, the U.S. economy is projected to employ more people, while relying on a different mix of skills and industries than it does today.