Occupations with declining employment
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According to America's Career InfoNet, occupations within the textile industry are projected to have the nation's
largest decline in employment during the 2004-2014 time period. Textile machine setters, operators, and tenders
are projected to decline nationally from a 2004 level of 119,800 workers to 60,600 in 2014. This is a 50.5 percent
drop in an 11 year period, or about 4.6 percent a year.
Other occupations anticipating heavy declines are utility meter readers (expecting a 45 percent drop); credit
authorizers, checkers and clerks (projected to decline 41
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percent); mail clerks and mail machine operators, except the postal
service (looking to a probable minus 37 percent); sewing machine
operators and file clerks (sharing a likely fall of 36 percent); computer
operators (down 33 percent) and numerous additional occupations
listed in the Top 50 Occupations with Declining Employment
section of America's Career InfoNet.
What are some of the reasons for these declines?
In the textile industry, the Department of Labor gives three primary
reasons: Increased supply of inexpensive imports from foreign
producers gaining a greater share of the U.S. market has reduced
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demand for American made textiles. More textiles are farmed out and assembled offshore to reduce local
manufacturing costs. Technology advances have occurred in production and new fabrics. Advances in
automation has increased productivity while reducing the number of workers. At the same time advances in textiles
are producing new fabrics that do not need as much processing.
In the case of utility meter readers, employment is expected to decline as a result of new automated meter
reading systems that allow meters to be monitored and billed from a central point.
Employment of credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks is expected to decline despite a projected increase in the
number of credit applications. Again technology is a driving force in reducing employment by allowing applications
to be processed, checked, and authorized by fewer workers.
One significant technological advance is Credit scoring. This is a major development that has improved the
productivity of credit authorizers, thus limiting employment growth in the occupation. Companies and credit
bureaus now can purchase software that quickly analyzes an applicant’s credit worthiness and summarizes it with a
“score.” Credit issuers then can easily decide whether to accept or reject an application on the basis of its score,
speeding up the authorization of loans or credit.
Economic activity is another factor affecting the demand for credit workers in that a downturn in the economy
or a rise in interest rates usually leads to a decline in demand for credit.
Related to the employment of credit authorizers are office support occupations such as mail clerks and file
clerks Demand for most office support occupations (except for court, municipal, and license clerks) are
expected to decline due to increased productivity through the use of personal computers and electronic mail.
Computer operators rank among the most rapidly declining occupations over the 2004-14 period because
advances in technology are making many of the duties traditionally performed by computer operators obsolete.
Experienced operators are expected to compete for the few job openings that will arise each year to replace
workers who transfer to other occupations or leave the labor force. Opportunities will be best for operators who
have formal computer education, are familiar with a variety of operating systems, and keep up to date with the
latest technology.
Conclusion:
While there are numerous reasons for the loss of jobs, three are highlighted above. These are foreign
competition reducing demand for American products, companies farming out work to other countries to reduce
costs, and technological advances that make an occupation or industry obsolete.
The worker who keeps up with new technology, and updates skills through additional training, should have the best
prospects of taking advantage of changing job opportunities and moving into other areas where work in their
chosen field is in demand.
For help in obtaining information to update skills, use these interactive career tools for career, education, and
business decisions.
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In the next issue, we will look at some occupations and industries expected to grow and thrive within the service
sector. We will also consider whether or not growth of employment in this area may be increasing the numbers of
low-paid and/or unstable jobs in our economy.
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