(bright music) - What is the overall mission of the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics?

- Mission I would say is just trying to provide data-backed solutions and data-backed understandings of problems that were asked by policy makers, by legislature, by other departments, perhaps nonprofits, any individuals who are really kind of working in this space and wanna know more about how they can execute their programs or how they can execute their work.

- We are here to talk about a recent report that you guys did, which was Michigan's Top 50 Hot Jobs Outlook through 2032, I believe.

Can you just give us a little bit about what that report entails, what it was about, how it came about?

- The project as a whole really tries to start the conversation around what are some of the hottest jobs, fields, et cetera in Michigan.

It sort of helps summarize and get folks talking about some of the most in-demand careers in Michigan.

- How do you compile the data for these jobs, where does that come from, and how does a job make it to number five as opposed to number 10 on the list?

- We look at statewide median wages for these occupations as well as our projected tenure job growth, which comes from a program carried out here at the state level, but it's maintained by the feds, so it's like carried out at every state.

So Ohio has these projections as well.

And then three different types of opening.

When we compare these five variables, we weigh them all evenly, and so if you're doing very well in median wages and job growth, but perhaps a little bit less in openings, that kind of factors into it, but all evenly across the five variables.

So we take this mix, we find that we get a good healthy mix of jobs.

The list, as I mentioned, we've done this a few times now, usually has about 80% carryover.

So roughly about 40 jobs will carry over every two years.

So that's nice.

If we did a 10 year outlook and two years later, only four of the jobs were the same, we'd have some concerns, understandably.

- One of the things you just mentioned was the three different types of job openings, am I understanding that correctly?

Can you explain that a little more?

- So the feds define it as transfers, which is an individual who's leaving a job for another job.

And that's not like I'm a registered nurse at this hospital going to this hospital.

It's more like I'm a registered nurse here, I'm going to teach at Wayne State University.

Typical occupational change due to like exits.

So folks who are just leaving the labor market could create openings as well.

And those are defined as folks who are leaving for a certain period of time.

That could be maternal or paternal care, perhaps taking care of a loved one, going back to school, et cetera.

But some individual who's not leaving to go to a new job.

It's just an individual who's exiting the labor force in their totality.

- What are the top jobs that you're seeing, and what do they have in common with each other?

- Well looking at roughly just the top 10, we see software developers, both mechanical and industrial engineers, registered nurses, and a number of other financial, management, computer STEM-related jobs often appearing here in the top 10.

It's tough to narrow it down to just 50 in the total list, but that does represent almost 20% of employment within the state actually.

So one in five jobs is captured on this list, but really those STEM jobs, STEM-related fields are really appearing near the top list, and they have been for a while now.

- You guys are compiling lists of projected job growth areas.

In doing that, are you discovering jobs and industries that are going to be in less demand?

- Those that perhaps require a lower barrier to entry, such as data entry, manual data entry, perhaps telemarketers, very low barrier to entry production jobs as well, like folks who are maybe pressing T-shirts individually, things that like machines are starting to do writ large quicker than like one individual operating a machine that they were perhaps trained on in a week or in a day, that kind of thing.

There's a little bit more growth in all fields, but a lot of that does require some level of post-secondary training.

- What would you say should be the biggest takeaway from lists like these reports like these that you guys publish?

- So not only do we need to prepare folks for these jobs, train folks for these jobs, we need to retain these folks too.

We can't be losing them to Chicago, we can't be losing them to Columbus, we can't be losing them to Texas or otherwise, and we might even have to be competing to be pulling these folks in.

- Is there anything pertinent that you want to address about these lists?

- Again, that job 51 is still a great job just because it didn't make it.

I think this year, that was occupational therapist, elementary school teachers, HVAC mechanics, plumbers, they didn't quite make the list.

Still fantastic jobs.

So we certainly hope we don't dissuade anybody from any of these opportunities just because they didn't make the list.

We have a lot of the data at our website, but I always love to push our Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity as well as the state's newest Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, MI-LEAP So LEO and MI-LEAP are two other departments of the state as well as local Michigan Works agencies that do fantastic work in this realm.