Economic Impact: Health care and retail jobs will be in demand during the next 10 years

What jobs will be in hot demand in the Richmond region during the next decade?

Jobs in the health care and social assistance sector and in the retail industry top the list.

For instance, the health care and social assistance sector is expected to need nearly 40,000 workers in the Richmond metro area over the next decade, according to Chmura Economics & Analytics’ JobsEQ technology platform.

About 19,000 of those jobs are needed because of growth in the health care sector, while the remainder represent positions that will be open because health care workers are retiring or moving to different occupations.

Within the health care sector, registered nurses top the list of growing occupations with nearly 5,000 more nurses needed in the region over the 10 years. About 2,000 of those nurses represent growth in the health care industry, while the remainder are a result of employees retiring or moving to different occupations.

Personal care aides, nursing assistants and home health aides round out the top four occupations in demand in the health care sector — and each of those occupations is expected to increase by more than 2,000 workers over the next decade.

The retail trade sector is second on the list of expected job openings over the next 10 years with 26,000 openings expected.

Of the expected openings in the region, about 4,000 are because the retail sector is growing. The remaining 22,000 jobs are a result of those retiring or moving to different occupations.

Retail sales positions top the list with nearly 8,000 positions to be filled, followed by cashiers at about 6,000 and stock clerks and order fillers with nearly 2,500 jobs.

And for students looking for jobs, more than 37,000 positions were available in the Richmond metro area during the past 30 days, according to the JobsEQ analytics.

More than 2,000 openings in the region were for retail sales jobs.

Registered and critical care nurses also were at the top of the list with nearly 1,500 job postings by employers in the area.

Demand also is strong for those with an information technology skill set. More than 800 job postings in the region over the past 30 days were for computer-user support specialists, and nearly 500 were for application software developers.