Succession Plans: Low Growth Industries with Lots of Job Openings
July 17, 2026The Oregon Employment Department projects total job growth in Oregon of 6% between 2024 and 2034. That translates to about 140,400 new jobs. That’s quite a few jobs added, but still at the lower-end in terms of 10-year growth since the year 2000. Oregon’s projected 10-year growth rate has been steadily declining by a few percentage points each year, from 10% in 2022, to 8% in 2023, and now 6% in 2024.
However, new jobs are only one element of Oregon’s workforce needs. Every sector will lose workers to retirements or career changes, and most of those workers will need to be replaced. In fact, growth is a relatively small part of the hiring picture. Replacement job openings make up 95% of all opportunities during the next decade. For every growth opening, there will be 17 openings due to worker replacements – nearly 2.5 million openings statewide.
Even industries that aren’t projected to grow at all will have many job opportunities available. In nearly every career path or industry, employers will need more workers as their current workforce retires or changes careers. Let’s look at some slower-growing industries and what kind of replacement needs they will have in the years to come.
| Industry | Percent Change | Employment Change | Replacement Openings | Share of Openings from Replacement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Industries | 6.4% | 140,400 | 2,435,000 | 94.5% |
| Self-Employment | 5.2% | 7,400 | 147,800 | 95.2% |
| Management of Companies and Enterprises | 4.8% | 2,400 | 41,300 | 94.5% |
| Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting | 3.2% | 1,800 | 68,500 | 97.4% |
| Government | 3.0% | 4,800 | 152,600 | 97.0% |
| Manufacturing | 1.6% | 3,000 | 182,400 | 98.4% |
| Educational Services (Private Sector and Government) | 1.5% | 2,600 | 162,300 | 98.4% |
| Retail Trade | 0.4% | 900 | 278,500 | 99.7% |
| Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction | 0.0% | 0 | 1,700 | 100.0% |
| Finance and Insurance | -2.8% | -1,500 | 43,000 | 100.0% |
A wide range of industries will grow more slowly than average, from mining and manufacturing to retail trade and government. The mining industry, for example, a small and slow growth field, will still have hundreds of job opportunities in the next decade from replacement. Even finance and insurance, which is projected to decline in total employment, will have 43,000 projected replacement openings over the next 10 years. Retail trade also sits at the lower end of the projected growth table but will have nearly 280,000 openings in the next 10 years that need replacement workers.
Many replacement openings arise from worker retirements. The workforce is aging in the U.S. and Oregon, and while workers are staying in the workforce later in life than in previous generations, older workers are still very likely to exit the workforce. For more on this topic, see this QualityInfo.org article on the aging of Oregon’s workforce.
Several slow-growth industries have an older than average workforce, especially agriculture, mining, real estate, and manufacturing, where approximately 30% of workers are 55 and older.
In addition to retirements, openings are created by “transfers” – workers who leave one field for another. The projections capture movement out of an occupation (for example, a construction worker leaving the field to become a teacher), not between jobs in the same field (for example, a teacher leaving a job to start at a different school). Higher turnover and younger industries, such as retail, have many more transfer openings over the 10-year period.
There are many ways to explore this data for yourself to find out more. Regional and statewide projections on our Projections page can show the unique patterns in your area. We also produce 10-year projections for nearly 800 occupations across the state, which you can access on the publications page or through the Occupation Profiles report. Occupational data are more detailed, but the high replacement-to-growth opening ratio generally holds true there as well.
Let’s look at a specific example. Fallers are a high-wage occupation that is vital to the slow-growth forestry industry. The median wage in Oregon is an enticing $41 an hour, but the field is relatively small and expected to decline 8% from 2024 to 2034, meaning there will be roughly three fewer people doing this job each year across the state.
The declining number of jobs might discourage people from considering this lucrative and important career, but the industry will need to find new workers somewhere: there are more than 50 projected openings in this field annually due to replacement needs. There are dozens of examples of occupations that are slow-growing or declining that will still need trained workers to enter the field each year.
Planning for future workforce needs, whether for your business or your career, depends on good information and reliable data. With the tools available at QualityInfo.org, you can prepare yourself for success, even in industries that aren’t leading Oregon’s job growth.