There are hundreds of different kinds of jobs, and BLS counts them by putting every worker into one of 867 detailed jobs in the Standard Occupational Classification, as of November 2026. These combine into 459 broad jobs, 98 minor groups and 23 major groups. As of November 2026, O*NET is the nation's primary source of job information. Its database covers over 900 job profiles and more than 55,000 jobs, and it is updated quarterly. As of November 2026, the Occupational Outlook Handbook has more than 300 career profiles that cover about 4 out of 5 jobs in the economy. Jobs are sorted into groups of similar work. The Occupational Outlook Handbook groups similar jobs into clusters, and O*NET says each career cluster holds jobs in one field that need similar skills. O*NET also groups jobs into Job Zones, from very little preparation up to extensive preparation. As of November 2026, O*NET labels some jobs Bright Outlook, meaning they are expected to grow rapidly in the next several years, to have large numbers of job openings, or to be new and emerging.

Researchers who studied US Census job lists from 1940 to 2018 found that the majority of current employment is in new job specialties introduced after 1940. The same research, using 35,000 Census job categories, found that about 60% of US jobs are in new types of work created since 1940. New work shifted from middle-paid production and clerical jobs between 1940 and 1980 to high-paid professional jobs and, secondarily, low-paid services. From about 1940 to 1980, jobs like elevator operator and typesetter tended to get automated. During the same years, more workers took jobs such as shipping and receiving clerk, buyer, and civil or aeronautical engineer, where technology created a need for more workers. In 1900 about 41% of the US workforce was employed in agriculture. By 1970 it was about 4%, and in 2000 it was 1.9%. That is about four in every ten workers in 1900 and fewer than two in every hundred in 2000. Since 1900, the number of US farms has fallen by 63%, while the average farm size has risen 67%. This is one reason fewer people work in farming today.

A job that is shrinking can still have openings. As of November 2026, farmers, ranchers and other agricultural managers are expected to fall 3% from 2025 to 2035, yet about 70,800 jobs a year are expected to open up. Many of those openings come from replacement, not growth, because workers move to other jobs or leave the labor force, such as to retire. In BLS projections, a decline means a decrease of 1% or more between 2025 and 2035, as of November 2026. Little or no change is expected in kindergarten and elementary teaching jobs, yet about 99,400 jobs a year open up. Postal service workers are expected to fall 1%, a loss of about 6,400 jobs, yet about 32,200 jobs a year open up from replacing workers. News analysts, reporters and journalists are expected to fall 6%, to about 2,800 fewer jobs. About 47,100 of these jobs existed in 2025.

People learn the skills for a job before they do it on their own, and some learn by working next to an expert who teaches them, which is called an apprenticeship. Electricians usually need a high school diploma, and most learn through an apprenticeship, which can last three or four years. In a Registered Apprenticeship, the apprentice has a paid job, gets structured on-the-job learning from an experienced mentor, takes classroom instruction and earns a nationally recognized credential. The US Department of Labor or a State Apprenticeship Agency approves it, and its length depends on the job, the employer and the type of program. Firefighters typically need a high school diploma and training in emergency medical services, and most train at a fire academy.

Other jobs need years of school. Doctors go to school for many years. After college, they earn a medical degree, which takes four more years. Physicians and surgeons then need 3 to 9 years of internship and residency, and a subspecialty adds a fellowship of 1 to 3 years. Registered nurses usually take one of three education paths: a bachelor's degree in nursing, an associate's degree in nursing, or a diploma from an approved nursing program. Veterinarians need a special veterinary medicine degree from a college and a state license. Most states require electricians to be licensed, and registered nurses must be licensed. Licensing rules often vary by state, so BLS does not keep information on specific requirements.

In a BLS profile, the median wage is the wage at which half of the workers in a job earned more and half earned less. A median is a middle number for that job. In the May 2025 BLS figures, as of November 2026, the median annual pay was $63,190 for electricians and $59,280 for firefighters. It was $97,550 for registered nurses, $130,100 for veterinarians and $275,930 for physicians and surgeons. The median annual pay for elementary school teachers, except special education, was $63,970 in May 2025, and there were about 1,530,500 kindergarten and elementary teaching jobs in 2025. BLS does not collect data on starting salaries. Its pay estimates cover wages and salaries only, and they leave out bonuses, employer benefit costs and self-employed people. So half of the electricians earned more than $63,190, and half earned less than that.

In 2025, workers 25 and over with a doctoral degree had median usual weekly earnings of $2,307 and a 1.8% unemployment rate, as of November 2026. Those with a high school diploma had $966 and 4.3%, and those without a diploma had $770 and 6.1%. BLS earnings by education do not count apprenticeships and other on-the-job training. These can also affect earnings and unemployment rates, so the chart leaves out a major way people learn skilled trades. Nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives and nurse practitioners must earn at least a master's degree in one of the advanced practice roles. They must also be licensed in their state and pass a national certification exam. Physician assistants typically need a master's degree from an accredited program, and all states require them to be licensed.

As of November 2026, BLS expects that from 2025 to 2035 the fastest-growing jobs by percent will be nurse practitioners (41%), solar photovoltaic installers (37%), data scientists (35%), wind turbine service technicians (30%) and medical and health services managers (24%). A fast-growing job does not always add many jobs, because a small job can grow fast and still add few jobs. For example, a job with 2,000 workers growing 20% adds only 400 jobs, while one with a million workers growing 5% adds 50,000. Wind turbine technicians and solar photovoltaic installers are small jobs, with about 11,800 and 31,100 jobs in 2025. Data scientists typically need at least a bachelor's degree in mathematics, statistics, computer science or a related field, and there were 275,600 of these jobs in 2025. In these projections, much faster than the average means that jobs are expected to increase 7% or more between 2025 and 2035.

As of November 2026, BLS expects the US economy to add 5.9 million jobs from 2025 to 2035. Total employment would grow from 170.3 million to 176.2 million, or 3.5%, slower than the 10.9% growth of 2015 to 2025. The jobs expected to add the most new jobs are home health and personal care aides (847,300), stockers and order fillers (250,700), fast food and counter workers (223,300), registered nurses (194,700) and general and operations managers (181,300). The private healthcare and social assistance sector is expected to add over 2.2 million jobs, about 37.0% of all new jobs. More healthcare jobs are expected to come from both the aging population and the increasing prevalence of chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. No other sector is expected to add more jobs than that one. Total employment would be 176.2 million in 2035.

BLS says that any employment impacts from artificial intelligence (AI) are highly uncertain, as of November 2026, so the effects are hard to know. Its exposure categories show how jobs compare, and exposure does not imply job loss, productivity gains, automation probability or wage effects. BLS defines theoretical AI exposure as the chance that AI technology could be used to assist or complete some of the work in a job. The current-evidence measures use observed AI interactions mapped to job tasks, not direct counts of workers using AI. Utilities are expected to be the fastest-growing major industry sector from 2025 to 2035, at 9.8%. The sector is small, so that is only about 58,800 new jobs. Much of the growth is from rising demand for electricity, including AI power demands.

People can change jobs. Many people work at a lot of different jobs in their lives. Workers born from 1957 to 1964 held an average of 12.9 jobs from ages 18 to 58, which is a span of forty years. They held 5.6 jobs between ages 18 and 24, then 4.5 from 25 to 34, 2.9 from 35 to 44, 2.2 from 45 to 54 and 1.3 from 55 to 58. The median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.1 years in January 2026, up from 3.9 years in January 2024. Median tenure was higher among older workers, a BLS survey found: 9.6 years for ages 55 to 64 and 3.0 years for ages 25 to 34 in January 2026. That is a gap of 6.6 years between the two age groups, and the older workers had stayed longer. These numbers cover wage and salary workers.

The US government does not use unemployment insurance claims to count the unemployed. Some people are still jobless when benefits run out, and many are not eligible or never apply, so BLS uses a monthly household survey instead. Counting every unemployed person each month would mean contacting every home, as the census does every 10 years. That would cost too much money and take too much time, so a sample is surveyed. As of November 2026, about 60,000 eligible households are in the sample, which means approximately 110,000 people each month. In that survey, a person counts as employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey week. This includes part-time and temporary work as well as regular full-time work.

Words to know

• apprenticeship: learning by working
• median: middle value
• tenure: time with employer
• automated: done by machines
• employer: who employs you
• unemployed: jobless