May 2006
Vol. 7, No. 5

New and Emerging Occupations in Indiana

Advancements in technology and processes are continually changing the Hoosier workplace. With those changes, new occupations are born and existing occupations are adapted. The Research and Analysis (R&A) arm of Indiana’s Department of Workforce Development (DWD) is charged with keeping abreast of our changing workforce to grow Hoosier jobs and incomes. Identification of new and emerging occupations is important to assure that educational and training programs are preparing our workforce with the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to keep Indiana competitive in our knowledge-based economy.

Exotic-sounding occupational areas such as pharmacokinetics (study of what the body does to a drug), bioinformatics (use of computers to handle biological information), and polysomnographics (aid in diagnosing and treating sleep disorders) appear in DWD’s first listing of “New and Emerging Occupations in Indiana.” The list also includes more well-known occupations: carpenters; plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters; and assemblers and fabricators. New tools, new materials, new methods and advanced computer technology have so changed industries that these less exotic occupations are being transformed, often requiring additional education and training. This initial list, shown by industry classification within this article, will be updated every six months.

Determining “New and Emerging” Occupations

New occupations are those that cannot be defined by existing standard occupational classifications. The occupations on the list were isolated using multiple approaches. First, the OES (Occupational Employment Statistics) survey (1) was used to gather occupations that respondents felt did not fit any of the survey’s pre-defined titles. These were confirmed as “new and/or emerging” by the R&A team by correlating them with occupations included in a Bureau of Labor Statistics study at the national level or in a study at an Indiana educational institution. Additionally, determinations were based on rapid growth of occupations in Indiana’s 2002–2012 occupational projections in industries that have developed new technologies and processes. This approach was based on review of projections made just before the widespread use of computers, which pointed toward new occupations being formed (systems analysts and computer engineers grew into the current variety of computer specialties, including database administrators, software engineers and applications engineers).

Indiana’s Department of Workforce Development is continuing to identify new and emerging occupations by having a team in its Research and Analysis section scrutinize the “supplemental pages” of its OES survey (where respondents list occupations that do not fit the pre-defined occupations) and having OES staff follow-up with respondents. As patterns are discovered, they will be used to revise DWD’s list of “new and emerging” occupations.