Nurse Practitioners Grow 41 Percent by 2035 While Office Support Sheds 752,100 Jobs

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has published its projections for how American employment changes between now and 2035, and the shape is clear even if the details are not certain. The Employment Projections release published on 27 August 2026 expects the economy to add 5.9 million jobs, taking total employment from 170.3 million to 176.2 million. That is growth of 3.5 percent, well below the 10.9 percent recorded over the previous decade. At Metaintro, we treat these projections as the single most useful public document for anyone choosing a field, because they combine demographics, technology and macroeconomics into one picture. Here is what they show.

Why Is Projected Growth So Much Slower Than the Last Decade?

The headline slowdown, from 10.9 percent over 2015 to 2025 down to 3.5 percent over 2025 to 2035, is mostly demographic rather than economic. The labour force itself is expected to grow more slowly because the population is ageing, which limits how many jobs can be filled regardless of how many employers want to hire. That matters for how you read every other number in the release. A projection of 3.5 percent growth in a shrinking labour pool is not the same as 3.5 percent growth in an expanding one. It implies persistent competition for workers in the sectors that are growing, and it means occupations projected to decline are not necessarily shedding people onto the street so much as failing to replace those who leave. As The New York Times noted in its coverage of the projections, two forces dominate the next decade, and they are ageing and artificial intelligence. Almost every specific number below traces back to one of those two. That is worth holding in mind because the two forces are not symmetrical. Ageing creates demand that has to be met by people and cannot be deferred, while automation removes demand gradually and unevenly. One is a floor under certain occupations and the other is a slow ceiling over others.

Which Sector Adds the Most Jobs?

Private healthcare and social assistance, by a wide margin. The sector is projected to grow 9.5 percent and add more than 2.2 million jobs, which accounts for roughly 37.0 percent of every new job expected through 2035. More than a third of all employment growth in the American economy over the next decade is expected to come from one sector. The driver is the same ageing population that slows overall growth. BLS attributes the expansion to both demographic ageing and the rising prevalence of chronic conditions such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Within the sector, services for the elderly and persons with disabilities is projected to add 625,400 jobs, the most of any detailed industry in the economy, driven by demand for home based care. That is a specific and actionable finding, and it is unusual for a projection to point this precisely at one category. It also has an entry route that does not require a four year degree, which matters if you are changing direction mid career rather than choosing a first field. If you want the highest probability bet on where jobs will exist in 2035, home and community based care is the answer the data gives, and it is a very different working life from a hospital role. Pay bands vary widely across the sector, and registered nurse pay and the moves that raise it is a useful reference point before committing to a training route.

Which Occupations Grow Fastest in Percentage Terms?

Nurse practitioners lead every detailed occupation in the economy at 41.0 percent projected growth, which BLS attributes to the central role the occupation plays in collaborative, team based models of care. That is the single fastest growing job title in the United States over the next decade. Behind it, the fastest growers split into two clusters. The energy cluster includes solar photovoltaic installers at 36.5 percent and wind turbine service technicians at 29.5 percent, both inside the five fastest growing occupations. The technology cluster includes data scientists at 34.6 percent and computer and information research scientists at 21.8 percent. Healthcare also fills out much of the top ten with physical therapist assistants, occupational therapy assistants, psychiatric technicians and ophthalmic medical technicians. If you are choosing a training route, the assistant and technician roles deserve more attention than they get, because they reach the labour market far faster than a full clinical qualification. The salary picture for the headline roles is set out in the nurse practitioner salary guide and the data scientist salary guide.

Why Can a Fast Growing Occupation Still Be a Small Opportunity?

This is the most commonly misread part of any projection, and the release makes the point unusually clearly. Utilities is the fastest growing major industry sector at 9.8 percent, yet that growth accounts for only 58,800 new jobs because the sector is small to begin with. Percentage growth and absolute opportunity are different things.

The same trap appears at occupation level. Solar photovoltaic installers and wind turbine service technicians are among the five fastest growing occupations in the country, and combined they are projected to add fewer than 15,000 jobs by 2035. The solar, wind and geothermal electric power generation industries are the fastest growing detailed industries in the economy, and together with other electric power generation they are projected to add only about 35,800 jobs. These are real careers with genuine demand, but a 36.5 percent growth rate on a small base does not produce many openings. Read both numbers before you commit to a retraining programme, because the percentage is what gets into headlines and the absolute figure is what determines whether you will find a job near where you live. A good rule of thumb is to divide the projected absolute gain by ten to get a rough annual national figure, then consider how much of that will land in your region. Fifteen thousand jobs over a decade is fifteen hundred a year across fifty states, which is a very different proposition from what a 36.5 percent growth rate suggests.

Where Does AI Show Up in the Numbers?

In two places, and they pull in opposite directions. On the growth side, demand for AI systems, research and development and associated consulting is projected to make professional, scientific and technical services the third fastest growing sector at 8.6 percent, adding 926,700 jobs, the second largest gain of any sector. The computing infrastructure, data processing and web hosting industry is projected to grow 25.1 percent and add 120,400 jobs. Electricity demand from data centres is behind four of the ten fastest growing detailed industries. On the other side, BLS expects productivity gains to dampen demand elsewhere. Generative AI that automates repetitive tasks may limit demand in arts, design, entertainment, sports and media occupations. The agency is explicit that automation tools including AI are the reason office and administrative support declines. Alongside the projections, BLS introduced a new data product classifying occupations by their exposure to AI, which is the first time the agency has published a formal exposure framework. According to the Times, occupations most exposed to AI are projected to grow just under 2 percent over the decade, slower than the 3.5 percent average and slower than BLS economists had expected two years ago.

Which Occupational Groups Are Shrinking?

Office and administrative support is the clearest loser, projected to decline 4.0 percent and shed 752,100 jobs, the fastest rate of decline and the largest absolute loss of any major occupational group. Sales and related occupations are projected to fall 1.4 percent as e-commerce grows and AI enters the sales process. Production occupations decline 0.4 percent as automated machinery spreads through manufacturing. At sector level, federal government employment is projected to fall 3.4 percent and retail trade 0.2 percent, with retail losing about 27,500 jobs as e-commerce continues to limit employment in physical outlets. There is a partial offset, since the growing volume of online orders supports employment in transportation and warehousing, projected to grow 3.1 percent. The distributional consequences are uneven, and research on the clerical workers most exposed to automation found the affected roles are disproportionately held by women. A decline concentrated in one group requires a different policy response from an evenly spread one.

What Do the Five Fastest Growing Occupational Groups Have in Common?

Healthcare support leads all 22 major occupational groups at 13.3 percent, followed by healthcare practitioners and technical occupations at 8.0 percent. Those two alone are expected to account for almost one third of all new jobs created through 2035. Life, physical and social science occupations come third at 7.5 percent, community and social service fourth at 7.4 percent, and computer and mathematical fifth at 7.3 percent. The pattern is worth naming. Three of the five involve direct care or human contact that cannot be performed remotely by software. The other two involve building and interpreting the systems that are displacing work elsewhere. What is absent from the list is the coordinating and processing work that sits between those two poles, which is precisely the layer that is shrinking. For anyone planning a decade ahead, that suggests moving toward either regulated human judgement or system design, and treating the middle as the least defensible ground. The middle is also where most existing office jobs currently sit, which is why this reads as uncomfortable rather than merely interesting for a large share of the workforce.

How Much Should You Trust a Ten Year Projection?

Less than the precision of the numbers implies, and the agency says so itself. Forecasting employment is difficult even in stable periods, and considerably harder during rapid technological change. Nobody involved, including the economists producing them, expects the figures to be exactly right.

What makes them valuable is not accuracy but comprehensiveness. Asked about it by the Times, BLS economist Meredith Miller described the projections as one of the most complete attempts to combine macroeconomic forecasts, demographic patterns and emerging trends into a single coherent picture, and noted that annual updates help the agency keep pace with current AI trends. The practical way to use them is directional rather than literal. Treat a 41.0 percent projection as strong evidence that nurse practitioner demand will grow substantially, not as a promise about a specific number of openings in your city. The Occupational Outlook Handbook carries the detailed profile for each occupation, including typical entry requirements and pay, and the projections programme publishes the underlying tables.

How Does This Compare With What Is Happening Right Now?

A ten year projection is easier to trust when the current data points the same way, and broadly it does. The August employment report showed health care adding 13,000 jobs in a single month, with home health care services contributing 11,000 of them, which is the same home based care story the projections describe. Information employment fell by 23,000 in the same month, including losses in computing infrastructure, publishing and broadcasting. There is one useful tension between the two. The projections expect the computing infrastructure and data processing industry to grow 25.1 percent over the decade, while the most recent monthly data shows it shedding jobs. Both can be true, because a decade long buildout does not arrive in a straight line and a single month is noise. It is a reminder that projections describe a destination, not a route, and that the route can include several years that look nothing like the trend. If you are making a decision this year, the monthly data tells you what the hiring market feels like now. The projections tell you what you are training toward. Confusing the two in either direction leads to bad choices, either abandoning a sound long term plan because of one weak quarter, or ignoring present conditions because a forecast is encouraging.

What Should You Do With This If You Are Choosing a Field?

Ask three questions of any occupation you are considering. First, what is the projected percentage growth, which tells you about direction. Second, how many jobs does that represent in absolute terms, which tells you whether openings will be findable. Third, how long does entry take, because a route that takes six years puts you into a different labour market from the one described here. Then check the geography, because national projections hide enormous regional variation. Home and community based care demand follows the elderly population, energy installation work follows where projects are built, and data centre related roles cluster in specific states. A national growth rate is useless if the nearest employer is four hundred miles away. Check the state and metropolitan data before you enrol in anything, not after. Training providers advertise national demand because it is the most flattering number available to them, and the mismatch between a national projection and a local labour market is the most common reason a well chosen retraining route still ends in a difficult search. If you are mid career and not just starting out, the assistant and technician roles inside the fastest growing healthcare group are worth serious attention, since they offer the shortest credible route into the sector adding more than a third of all new jobs. Best jobs for a career change covers how transferable experience is assessed when you move across sectors, and skills training programmes that actually raise pay is a reasonable filter for choosing between routes. At Metaintro, we track live openings against these categories, which is the fastest way to see whether a projection has arrived in your area yet.

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People Also Asked

Q: What is the fastest growing job in the US?

A: Nurse practitioner, projected to grow 41.0 percent between 2025 and 2035, the fastest of any detailed occupation according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Solar photovoltaic installers follow at 36.5 percent, data scientists at 34.6 percent and wind turbine service technicians at 29.5 percent. Several healthcare assistant and technician roles also rank in the top ten.

Q: Which jobs are declining fastest?

A: Office and administrative support occupations are projected to decline 4.0 percent and shed 752,100 jobs by 2035, the steepest fall and largest absolute loss of any major occupational group. Sales and related occupations decline 1.4 percent and production occupations 0.4 percent. At sector level, federal government falls 3.4 percent and retail trade 0.2 percent.

Q: How many jobs will the US add by 2035?

A: About 5.9 million, taking total employment from 170.3 million to 176.2 million, which is growth of 3.5 percent. That is substantially slower than the 10.9 percent recorded between 2015 and 2025, mainly because the labour force is expected to grow more slowly as the population ages rather than because demand for workers is weak.

Find out whether the projection has reached your area yet. Metaintro tracks live openings across healthcare, energy, technical services and the trades, and matches them to your background in a single chat based thread. Create your free profile and see what is actually hiring near you.