Will a high school diploma be enough to get a job in Oregon?

(DECEMBER 8, 2018) Many future jobs in Oregon might not require a lot of higher education. A high school diploma might be enough, according to a news story in the Portland Business Journal. However, that one piece of data is not the complete picture, and a college degree is still necessary for many occupations.

The Oregon Employment Department (OED) predicts 246,014 new jobs will be added between 2017 and 2027. It says another 2.4 million existing positions will need new workers. That's because existing workers will retire or change jobs.

OED says most of these jobs -- 71% -- will require only a high school diploma or less. However, it also says that most of those jobs will offer low salaries and few benefits, such as health insurance and retirement plans.

Jason Payton, a state occupational economist, says, "... occupations like those found in retail trade, leisure and hospitality make up a large part of our workforce. These occupations have relatively high replacement needs as people leave them to find other careers, and as such create more job openings than other occupations.”

Still, other occupations that require higher education (such as a master's degree or a doctorate degree) will also grow. In fact, they will grow between 16% and 18%. However, there are fewer of these positions, so the number of new and replacement workers are fewer than other categories.

The most new jobs will be in service occupations. Service occupations are jobs like restaurant waiters. Experts believe that the health care field will be the fastest growing in terms of available jobs. About half of the health care jobs will require an associate's degree and 32% will require a bachelor's degree or higher.

You can find more details in the infographics at Portland Business Journal.