In most industries, the jobs picture is bleak. Unemployment is high and new opportunities are harder to come by across the board – almost. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, education and health services continue to project job grow that is much faster than average through 2016. In fact, they predict that a full 30% of all new hiring done will be in these sectors!

A significant cause of this growth is the overall increase in spending on heath and education related services relative to the overall economy. But another important cause is the aging nature of many of the workers – at all levels – in both fields. Education and health are ranked in the top tier among all industries that anticipate recruiting and retention pressure as their workforce begins to retire in greater than average numbers.

In these industries, which require postsecondary education for many employees, ensuring an adequate supply of appropriately educated workers now is critical to avoiding severe shortages in the future. In fact, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing worries that 500,000 positions per year could go unfilled.

Certainly, if the current economic condition persists for too long, workers who had planned to retire may stay on and new job growth will be lower, but relative to other fields these two industries will continue to require greater flexibility and skill from responsible human resource personnel.

For these and other reasons we are looking forward to Lisa Orrell’s webinar on How to Successfully Recruit, Manage, and Retain Our Next Generation of Young Professionals. Understanding the cultural differences that set the “Millennials” apart from other generations will be important for attracting the best talent, mitigating clash between the incoming and outgoing (Boomer) groups, and allowing their diversity, independence and optimism to shape an organization’s success. This will be doubly true in those fields that now have – and will soon lose – older workers in great numbers.