Health Care Dominates List of Fastest Growing Jobs in Southwestern Oregon

January 15, 2025

The Employment Department recently released 10-year job projections for occupations and industries across all the workforce regions of Oregon. There’s a lot of data to dig into to better understand the local economy and job market.

This marks the first projections cycle in several years that looks at most of the massive job loss seen in 2020 in the rearview mirror. While not every region has fully recovered the total number of jobs lost in the last recession, these year’s projections largely tell the story of structural change in the economy rather than cyclical.

These data contain many insights, but the direction they take you in depends on how you ask the question. One element that deserves a deeper dive: what does the projections have to say about the jobs that are projected to grow the fastest in our region?

Reflecting the broad-based and continuous growth in the health care sector, the fastest growing jobs are nearly all in some element of health care. The top two roles – Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants – benefit from increased demand for medical services as well as changing roles within the field. Advanced Practice Providers, as these roles are sometimes grouped, are increasingly complementing or replacing the work done by MDs in a variety of settings.

Other roles in particular health care field are also represented. Physical and respiratory therapists will continue to grow rapidly, as will several different levels of veterinary care providers. Medical and health services managers and medical assistants, on the other hand, will be in more general demand across a wide range of health care establishments.

Software developers are the one exception to healthcare’s dominance of the fastest growing roles. The occupation is growing across Oregon and the nation as greater demand for data analytics and systems development grows across many sectors. 

Health Care’s Fast Growth Only Tells Part of the Projections Story

In general, this view of things overemphasizes the portion of the workforce that requires advanced education. Only three of these roles have a competitive entry level education of an associate’s degree or less. Across the economy, however, about two-thirds of jobs in 2023 had a competitive entry level education of less than a four-year degree.

This also doesn’t consider the substantial hiring needs across nearly every occupation due to replacement. In fact, 96% of openings across the ten-year period will be due to the need to replace workers who retire or transfer out of the field. Southwestern Oregon is similar to the state, where about nine out of 10 job openings will be due to replacement. 

While understanding the fastest growing jobs is an important element to consider in how our economy will change by 2033, it only tells a part of the story. For workforce developers, educators, and jobseekers, understanding the diverse needs of employers is critical to the healthy functioning of the labor market.