Service Jobs - Real Estate

Real estate

Real estate did not get its own sector in the North American Industry Classification System. Instead it is a sub-sector within a bigger sector entitled Real Estate and Rental and Leasing. Rental and leasing establishments rent or lease cars, trucks, RV’s, appliances, formal ware, costume ware, videos, health equipment, commercial machinery and equipment, or just about anything you can imagine.

It is the real estate sub-sector that interests us here with 1.43 million jobs in 2010. Real estate establishments sell, buy or rent real estate as brokers but also have all other establishments that rent, lease or manage real estate for others. A small part of asset leasing has establishments that lease patents, trade marks and franchise agreements, but it has only 25.2 thousand jobs.

Real estate establishments have 3 specialty occupations: property, real estate and community association managers, real estate agents and real estate brokers. Combined they have 270 thousand jobs in 2010. All real estate establishments have office work with jobs that reflect office needs such as bookkeeper, receptionist, office clerk and secretary.

A little over 8 percent of the non-managerial jobs in these sub-sectors use college degree training. College degree trained jobs at real estate firms are in finance and management but the Bureau of Labor Statistics defines real estate brokers and agents as sales occupations that do not need college degree skills. All states require brokers and agents to pass a written test and have a license that requires classroom training and some years of experience.

Real estate agents and brokers do not work for salary but typically work on sales commission. This practice causes some to draw hasty and inaccurate conclusions about broker and agent income. A $500,000 suburban house is not unusual in today’s economy and a 6 percent sales commission comes to $30,000. Who hasn’t noticed one of these houses selling after a single day on the market or one Sunday open house? Who hasn’t thought $30,000 for just one day’s work? Some definitely think, “I should get into real estate?”

The first mistake is to presume a $30,000 commission is income to the broker or agent. Brokers and agents typically pay half their commissions to their real estate company for office space and other necessary services like advertising. Since the real estate company gets half of commissions it is their interest to have many commissions and therefore many brokers and agents out selling, which increases competition among individual brokers and agents and decreases their chances of earning that sales commission.

A second mistake comes from the term’s buyers market and sellers market. People forget these terms do not apply to the real estate agent. In a buyers market there are more sellers than buyers. It is easier for an agent to get a house to list but buyers can do a lot of shopping and make many low bids. With buyers doing thorough shopping the weeks and months go by preparing offers and showing houses to bargain hunters, but no commission or income for all that work and time.

In a sellers market there are more buyers than sellers. It is harder to get a house to list so enterprising brokers and agents take up showing other agents listings to some of the many anxious buyers. To share in the commission they have to prepare separate offers and be the broker or agent with the highest bid. In hot suburban markets like metropolitan Washington, DC houses can draw 8, 10 and 12 offers with many offers above the listed asking price. Only one offer is the winning bid and so only one offer shares in the commission. With a sellers market, the weeks and months go by preparing offers and traipsing through houses, but no commission or income for all that work and time.

Annual wages for 2010 reported for brokers has a large range with the 10th percentile annual wage of $25,490 and the 90th percentile annual wage at $163,080. Seldom is the 90th percentile annual wage more than 6 times the 10th percentile amount as it is here.

In real estate offices annual incomes for agents and brokers depends on the selling skills and energy of individuals. The better someone can be at selling and the more time and energy they put into showing and marketing property the higher their income. Still, the high range of incomes reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics does indicate risk. Only a few make high incomes in real estate and we have to suspect there are long and unpredictable hours doing so. For anyone considering a career in real estate, follow this advice. Develop a back up plan.

Real estate establishments are not just the offices of real estate agents and brokers, but also firms that act as lessors of residential and non-residential property. Also real estate property managers and offices of real estate appraisers go in this sub sector. Real estate assessor and appraisers have 28 percent of their jobs in the real estate sector, a 2010 real estate total of 26.7 thousand jobs out of a national total 62.5 thousand. Local governments employ the most real estate assessors and appraisers. The realty firms doing property management often hire many in building and grounds maintenance. Add the janitors, maids, and landscaping and grounds maintenance workers and it is more jobs than realtors and brokers.

Somewhat unnoticed in activities related to real estate is the rise of the mini warehouse and self-storage units, along with employment as lessors of mini warehouse and self-storage units. Employment growth as lessors in this sub sector increased at an annual rate of 5.68 percent from 1990 to 2010, a rate 4 times the employment growth for all of the real estate industry.

The general rule of storage unit leasing is to make sure those must-save-things are worth more than the monthly locker rental; an amount apparently in the $50 to $100 range depending on size and location. Check values of used furniture, clothes and kitchenware at the Salvation Army. Prices there are very attractive and it might be possible to fill a unit with less than $100.00 worth of used stuff. If you must go ahead, remember that employment is a requirement in America and you are helping to support wages and income for lessors of mini warehouse and self-storage units, an industry with 45 thousand jobs.

With a 112.1 million service jobs to divvy up, real estate services gives us 1.43 million jobs, but that is only 1.1 percent of establishment employment. Real estate services employment has been growing at 1.16 percent a year, which is faster than the rate for non-farm employment. We still have 59 million service jobs left to fill. They are still more sectors, but the share of professional jobs in the remaining sectors keeps going down.

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Service Jobs - Information Services

Information Services

The NAICS definition of Information Services attempts to include all the establishments that produce, distribute or transmit information or cultural products. Establishments publishing books, magazines, newspapers, films, sound recordings or producing television and radio programming are included here.
Establishments that distribute and transmit information include a variety of telecommunications: phone service, cellular, paging, cable, satellite, Internet Service, web search firms, and libraries. These establishments tend to own, operate, and maintain facilities.

The companies cannot be neatly divided between production and the distribution-transmission segments. NBC produces programming and then distributes or transmits their product over broadcast airwaves, the Internet, cable, DVD’s. Newspapers still print newspapers but most also publish over the Internet. Software companies repackage other people’s published products into digital materials for libraries. Libraries look like computer labs.

In the process of devising the new NAICS industry classification system, the committee decided to split off computer and Internet services into their own categories. Publishing is publishing except the Internet and broadcasting is broadcasting except the Internet. Data processing and hosting and related services have a separate sub-sector as do Internet publishers and broadcasters and web search portals. Google is not just a search engine, although its employment goes into the web search portals sector.

Information service jobs trended upward in the 1990’s and peaked in 2000 with 3.6 million jobs. Jobs in the digital technology services are no longer increasing fast enough to offset the losses in print publishing, broadcasting and wireline phone services. Employment totals started dropping in 2000 with jobs in 2010 down to 2.71 million.

Employment in publishing, except Internet, dropped 274 thousand since 2000. Include newspapers, books, magazines, directories, greeting cards and everything printed in sub-sectors that lost jobs. Jobs in software publishing jumped from 98 to 260 thousand from 1990 to 2000, although jobs are only 259.8 thousand in 2010. Telecommunications employment reached a peak of 1.44 million in March 2001, but 899.7 thousand by 2010.

Technological change affects all information services where cost cutting with the new technologies and competitive expansion of entertainment opportunities has the potential to create many new products at much lower costs and prices. For a company to compete they have to have access to customers. In information services that means access to phone lines, cable, the airwaves and so on. If the older established companies that own or control the networks could prevent access to networks then competition stops. Limited access assures a few comfortable firms that charge high prices and take their sweet time adopting new technologies. So far technology companies, the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission keep steady negotiations to find a satisfactory regulatory framework to allow just the right amount of competition, whatever that might be. If the system they work out drives prices down to cost in good competitive fashion, there will be many jobs in jeopardy, not just profits.

Many are familiar with the website called Craigslist.com. Materials on the website defines their mission rather than what they do. What they do is up to the user to decide and I would say it is self serve classified advertising, available free to all users, except three metropolitan areas that pay a token fee. There are message boards and chat rooms and some other appealing services, all free, but roughly speaking it is classified advertising by geographic area and no charge. It serves the entire world.

Metropolitan Washington, DC has its own link and scrolling through the ads it is definitely getting heavy use. However, the Washington Post continues with its printed classified ads that have variable but significant charges, especially compared to free. A few lines of job ad placed only for the weekend can easily run $200.00. Having the Washington Post and Craigslist selling classified advertising at dramatically different prices in the same market defies everything economists predict about markets. In economic theory this does not happen. The low cost and low price seller will take business away from the high priced seller. High priced sellers will have to lower their price or go bankrupt. Prices will equalize among competitive sellers.

This is very good theory and it should happen just that way; so far it has not. We might speculate why. The people that read classified advertising are many, and perhaps they seldom place a classified ad in either newspapers or Craigslist. For them they may not care what the ad costs but they are in the habit of looking at newspapers rather than the Internet so they have no reason to follow Craigslist even though it is cheaper.

If people do adopt the low priced seller as economic theory predicts we have to worry about jobs. When I first heard about Craigslist a few years back, they had an “about us” link where I learned they had 18 employees. Last time I looked they are up to 26, a 44 percent increase in employment. Think about that. In the new digital world, we can have all the classified advertising anybody needs or wants anywhere in the world with just 26 jobs.

Newspapers have begun to eliminate stock prices from their daily business news. They cannot compete with the graphs, charts and continuously updating stock quotations available on the Internet. Some Americans, especially older Americans, want to maintain long held habits and prefer their stock quotes and their classifieds from newspapers, just as some even keep a Yellow Pages around the house, but the future of information will be electronic and the job trends will be down.

These relatively new services require access to a network like phone lines, a cable network, or wireless transmitters. If access to networks could be blocked by network owning companies then independent Internet Services like Craigslist would not exist.

Old timers will remember the phone monopoly where AT&T did its own research at Bell Labs, produced its own equipment at Western Electric and installed and owned the phone lines, switching equipment and all the business and household phones. Under regulations approved by the Federal Communications Commission phone users were renting their telephones from the AT&T and they were strictly prohibited from altering or changing their rental equipment. Anything but Phone Company phones were prohibited and referred to as foreign attachments.

With the principle that ownership should bring control, the Federal Communications Commission agreed to a policy of no foreign attachments. The policy changed in 1968 when an independent company developed a device that could be connected to the telephone and allowed two way wireless radio connection. It was called the Carterphone.
If the Federal Communications Commission continued its old policy and prevented users from connecting anything to the phone lines, then a new technology would be abandoned and a new industry with jobs in manufacturing would be lost. Incentives for innovation and research for the future would be brought to a halt.

The Federal Communications Commission wrote a new policy to allow foreign attachments in effect opting to encourage innovation and new technologies. In doing so it created a new industry and paved the way for fax machines, answering machines, the computer modem, Internet Service providers and the vast new digital age of today and tomorrow.

In 1968, a telephone company sold telephone service and charged regulated monopoly rates based on minutes and distance. Even after 1968 and the Carterphone rules, the use of analog technology kept communication companies in separate markets with separate services. Before the arrival of digital communications, the phone company was close to the same thing as telecommunications and separate from other businesses.

With today’s digital technology the walls of separation are falling down. The FCC continues to have jurisdiction over telecommunications services but foreign attachment rules covering equipment proved inadequate to allow for the expansion of computer and Internet services. Foreign attachment implies a physical device that end users buy for themselves but Internet Service providers need access to phone lines. New rules permit independent Internet Service providers, data processing services and others to have equal access to phone lines. Phone companies can offer their own services but they have to allow others to compete on an equal basis. Now that everybody can get into everybody else’s business, the chances for competition increase and there is room for lower prices as part of cost cutting and competition.

Wireline, wireless and cable companies can offer Internet services in addition to phone and cable services with minimal new investment in proprietary equipment. More of the telecommunications industry uses the computer hardware and software that can be used with all information services including music and television. Costs are falling and the incremental cost of new subscribers for one or more services keeps dropping. With many companies able to offer cable, Internet and phone services and with creative new services like Voice Over Internet Protocol and satellite services the chances for competition go up day by day. Competition among a growing number of companies to sell lower cost services should lead to lower prices to consumers and with more service options to choose different combinations of services.

So far there has not been much price cutting. Companies get away with selling a block or bucket of services at quite high prices. If Competition among these many companies with their overlapping services ever really breaks out, prices could fall to very low levels. It might happen and it might not. If prices remain high then profits and dividends to stockholders will be good. If prices fall, then profits and dividends will fall and consumers will get a break. Either way the prognosis for jobs is not good.

During the period from 1990 to 2010 wireline telecommunications employment dropped by 160.4 thousand jobs leaving 599 thousand jobs. During the same period wireless employment increased from 36 thousand jobs to a high of 203 thousand jobs in 2007, but dropped to a monthly average of 170.5 thousand by 2010. Despite the massive change over to wireless service there are many more jobs to lose in wireline than there are jobs to gain in wireless.

Job growth in all parts of information services depends on people’s use of digital technology. Publishing generally, and newspaper circulation especially are down and employment with it. The potential continues for further decline if people get into different habits and read their news and classifieds over the Internet.

Broadcasting jobs in television and radio reached a high of 252.8 thousand jobs in 2000, but dropped afterward to 210.9 thousand by 2010. Jobs in Internet publishing and broadcasting and Web Search portals continue to grow rapidly reaching a high of 110.8 thousand jobs in also in 2000. Only 91.4 thousand jobs remain by 2010. If consumers switch from broadcast television to Internet broadcasting there are many more jobs to lose than jobs to gain in Internet broadcasting.

Data processing and web hosting services are down to 242 thousand jobs in 2010 from a high of 316.8 thousand jobs in 2001. The motion picture and sound recording industries are holding steady with 372 thousand jobs about the same as 1998 and 1999.

Information occupations needing college degree skills come to 1.01 million jobs, or about 37.1 percent of the total. Career jobs that use college degree skills in publishing include 105.2 thousand jobs as reporters and correspondents, news analysts, public relations, writers and editors and some art and design jobs, especially graphic design; college degree skills in film and sound recording establishments include 37.1 thousand jobs as producers and directors. Many actors, composers and musicians have college degrees, but demonstrated skills are the main criteria for these jobs.

With only 2.71 million jobs information Services has only a small share of non-farm establishment jobs. Information services had a rising share of non-farm jobs until 2000, which turned out to be the start of a downward trend. The 2010 job share equals 2.1 percent non-farm employment. With just 2.71 million jobs we cannot expect much help from Information Services to fill the new jobs of the future.

Wider use of information technology permits companies to increase their services and decrease employment. Up to 2010 the companies have avoided competition so that high prices restrict the use of services over what they would be if prices more closely reflected incremental costs. Increasing the sales of information services would help support jobs and moderate the decrease in employment caused by higher productivity and technology, but the small base of employment and the risks of further job losses does not permit forecasting many more jobs from information services. We have 60.4 million jobs left to fill we have to have more service.

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Service Jobs - Non-Profit Organizations

Non-Profit Organizations

We can sympathize with the drafters and crafters of the North American Industry Classification system. These people are good at organization and classification, but as things went on they found a few industries that would not fit, leftovers too small to stand alone and too disparate to have a common name. Hence, they declared a sector called Other, which is really four sub sectors of very different services. Allow me to give their definition, which I cite exactly. “Establishments in this sector are primarily engaged in activities, such as equipment and machinery repairing, promoting or administering religious activities, grantmaking, advocacy and providing dry cleaning and laundry services, personal care services, death care services, pet care services, photo finishing services, temporary parking services and dating services.” If you can find a common thread there you are definitely a better person than I am.

The four sub sectors make better sense looked at separately and national industry employment data is reported for the separate sub sectors. The biggest sub sector is a loose amalgam of non-profit organizations, which is the sub sector we want to look at here. The three other sub sectors we look at a little later on. Non-profits have almost 3.0 million jobs, not counting 1.7 million more jobs in religious organizations, meaning churches and synagogues, mosques and monasteries.

Besides religion non-profit organizations have Grantmaking and Giving Services giving away money to worthy applicants, or Social Advocacy Organizations promoting causes like wildlife preservation and birth control, or Civic and Social Organizations like scouting, fraternal lodges, or country and social clubs promoting the civic and social interests of members, and finally Business, Professional, Labor, Political and Similar Organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, International Brotherhood of Teamsters and State and Federal Bar Associations. Include PAC’s in this fifth sub sector.

Work at non-profit organizations tends to be office work, which assures a higher percentage of office jobs in managerial, financial and administrative support occupations than the national average.

Specialized professional jobs include human resources, training, and labor relations specialists, and meeting and convention planners, but also social advocacy organizations need professionals to be counselors, social workers and social service specialists where knowledge of social problems and how to solve them requires counseling and social work training. Grant making and giving services may need these specialties to evaluate applications or do other advising.

Media occupations such as public relations manager and public relations specialist have more than 48.9 thousand jobs, especially in business, professional, labor, and political organizations. There is no occupation called lobbyist in the Standard Occupational Classification but lobbyists are included in counts of public relations specialists.

Civic and social organizations sub sector, which includes alumni associations, fraternal lodges, social clubs and country clubs, tend to have dining rooms, fitness facilities, and swimming pools so there are food service jobs and jobs as fitness trainers and aerobics instructors, recreation workers, and other support jobs like lifeguard, and childcare.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 23.0 thousand clergy working in religious organizations out of 42.8 thousand national clergy jobs. Clergy can be clergy working in social service organizations and a few in the government, but only clergy jobs are counted here.

Nearly 13.7 thousand Directors of Religious Activities and Education work here. Many churches run a preschool so there are 18.5 thousand preschool teacher jobs. Other jobs include 18.5 thousand self-enrichment teachers and 4.3 thousand elementary and secondary school teachers also work here, about 67.6 thousand education jobs total.
Churches and religious organizations are the largest employers of musicians and singers who actually play and sing for pay; about 12.6 thousand jobs. Musicians and singers at schools and colleges teach as their primary activity so their jobs go in education.

The non-profit organizations in this sub sector generated 3.0 million jobs in 2010 but it is only 2.3 percent of establishment employment. Over the 20 years from 1990 to 2010 the yearly growth rates averaged slightly higher than the national average so non-profits are relatively more important now than 1990. It is a slow increase in share however so non-profits will not be much help in replacing the lost manufacturing jobs. We have 63.1 million jobs left to fill. We need more service.

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Service Jobs - Finance

Finance and Insurance Services

America has 5.7 million people with jobs in 4 separate NAICS sub sectors that handle financial transactions and not much else. The biggest share of these jobs goes into establishments defined as credit intermediaries, which have 2.5 million of the 5.7 million jobs.

Most of the establishments in credit intermediation are still known as banks, savings and loan, credit unions, but there are others. Credit intermediaries accept deposits and make loans, but credit intermediaries also include lenders that do not accept deposits: credit card issuers, consumer lenders, and real estate credit firms.

The banking and savings and loan part of credit intermediation are down 269.1 thousand jobs since 1990 and they continue to decline. Credit unions have 94.1 thousand more jobs in the same period but they are down slightly from 2008.

New jobs in credit cards, consumer lending and real estate loans helped make up some losses. Consumer lending more than doubled after 1990 to a high of 118.9 thousand jobs in 2007, but dropped to 92.7 thousand jobs in 2010. Real estate credit companies jumped from 110 thousand jobs in 1990 to a high of 351 thousand jobs in 2006, but have dropped back to 199 thousand jobs by 2010.

The insurance sub sector has the second most jobs in finance and insurance: 2.2 million. Jobs in insurance are growing slower than the national average between 1990 and 2010.

A third sub sector defined as securities, commodity contracts and investments is much smaller with 801 thousand jobs, up from 458 thousand in 1990, but down from a high of 864 thousand in 2008.. Brokerage houses and investment bankers are in this sub sector.

The NAICS classification puts trust fund and mutual fund management in a separate category, which remains small with only 86.9 thousand jobs.

Finance and insurance occupations needing college degree skills comes to 2.4 million jobs, which is 42 percent of jobs in finance and insurance. The most important professional occupations needing college degree skills are loan officers with 257.8 thousand jobs. Loan officers work with the borrowing public, evaluating and advising clients and processing loan applications.

Another 246 thousand work as financial analysts and personal financial advisors, mostly in credit intermediation and security brokerage and investment banking. Financial Analysts study business financial statements and advise firms with money to invest. Personal Financial Advisors do similar work but advise individuals for their personal financial decisions.

There are four professional occupations specialized to the insurance industry: insurance sales agent with more than 303.5 thousand jobs, claims adjuster with 185 thousand jobs, insurance underwriter with 85 thousand jobs and actuary with about 12.3 thousand jobs. Actuaries analyze statistical data and construct probability tables of risk used to set premium rates that will build cash reserves to pay claims.

Money is only kilobytes on a computer, which makes finance and insurance jobs office work sitting at a desk with a computer. We especially suspect this in finance and insurance because this sector and its sub sectors have the highest percentage of jobs in administration and office support occupations: 48 percent. The overall average among all America’s establishments is 16.9 percent.

Jobs in just the finance and insurance sector include 481 thousand jobs as customer service representatives, and 542 thousand jobs as tellers. Customer Service Representatives are one of several important office and administration jobs with employment in every sector of the United States economy. There are now almost 2.1 million total jobs as customer services representatives with the largest share, or nearly a quarter of them, employed in the finance and insurance sector. Customer service representatives handle customer inquiries and resolve customer complaints. Automated computerized voice mail systems do some of the routine customer service work, but not enough to decrease employment because the number of jobs keeps growing. The growth is modest but these jobs are going up and not down.

Customer service representatives do not require college degree training, but they are not walk on jobs like a cashier. For starters, people in these jobs need to speak clearly and grammatically. They have to explain many varied service options and service plans that are increasingly complex and the job requires computer skills since they routinely access computer database information.

Unlike autoworkers, who have to be at the auto plant to do their work, Customer service representatives can be anywhere they have a computer and a telephone. Working from home saves commuter costs and space on already clogged highways. Telecommuting saves business the expense of providing office space, which gives incentive to increase their staff working at home at least some of the time.

In addition, office space for Customer service representatives could be moved to low rent small towns, rural areas or abroad to work, but beginning in 2005 over 80 percent of Customer Service Representatives are in metropolitan areas.

The claim is made that business is transferring customer service jobs abroad, but it is unlikely their numbers would be steadily increasing if many of these jobs were being moved abroad. Given the complexity of America’s many service plans in loans, credit cards, telecommunications, health care and other areas customer service work will not be decreasing anytime soon. If employment in these areas begins to decline then it will be a blunt message that these jobs are being moved abroad.

Tellers are also an important job to watch. Office automation could just about eliminate teller jobs. Money machines eliminate the need for tellers for check cashing and other basic banking transactions. Writing paper checks requires an elaborate process of handling, posting and clearance that takes much longer and requires more labor than electronic processing at the point of sale.

Available technology permits elimination of check writing, paper and currency in today’s digital world. However, teller jobs are not decreasing and have been increasing modestly in the last few years. Our happiness with these teller jobs has to be modest because the 2010 median annual salary rings in at $24,100, but their continued growth shows America’s resistance to further changing to electronic money. With broadband Internet hookups at more and more households some people are comfortable with their money literally flying through the air. Perhaps paper gives comfort to others with something so important in our daily lives. Whatever the reason America’s refusal to eliminate checks and currency supports many more jobs than technology requires.

Higher labor productivity makes manufacturing more efficient, but continues to eliminate jobs. In a digital world finance and insurance also has the potential to use more efficient methods that will eliminate teller jobs. If Americans keep using things that are inefficient America would have more jobs, but if America wants efficiency they may have to think of shorter hours or some new ways to spread the work.

With a 112.1 million service jobs to divvy up, Finance and Insurance gives us 5.7 million jobs, which comes to 4.4 per cent of establishment jobs. Finance and insurance services employment continues to grow too slowly to maintain its share of America’s jobs. We have looked at 46 million service jobs so far but we still have 66.1 million service jobs left to fill. Non-profit organizations are up next. Even though they do not sell much they have service, service, and service.

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Service Jobs - Management

Management of Companies and Enterprises

This sector is the oddball of the NAICS classification system. An important reason for defining a management sector comes from the emphasis on reporting data and information at the establishment level. A firm can have many establishments scattered around at different locations where some establishments within the larger firm might be just head offices or administrative offices. Other establishments might be doing the firm’s productive work with some management, but establishments primarily engaged in managing get their own sector.

The management of companies and enterprises sector employs 1.86 million as of 2010, 196 thousand more than 1990. Over 95 percent of employment in this sector is in establishments that only administer, oversee or manage other establishments, or do the administrative work for establishments that actually do something like manufacture products or provide services. The remaining few percent of jobs are at holding companies that own the stocks of one or more other companies in order to control them.

In this, a managerial sub sector, management jobs have 18.3 percent of all the jobs, which accounts for 349 thousand management positions. In the national economy a little over 4.7 percent of America’s jobs are classified as part of managerial occupations like general and operations manager, marketing manager, sales manager and so on. Even though lots of managerial jobs are filled with people moving from professional jobs, management occupations remain distinct from professional occupations. A civil engineer who works as a manager of civil engineers works in a management occupation, even though civil engineer is a profession. The bachelor degree plus work experience category amounts to a managerial skill category because over 82 percent of jobs in this skill category are in one or another of management occupations.

Management and Professional occupations make up almost all of America’s jobs that use college degree skills. If we total all of the jobs in the service economy where a four year college degree or additional master’s, doctorate or professional degrees are required in the skills taxonomy, the total comes to 25.8 million for 2010. That is 25.8 million out of the total of 112.1 million service providing jobs.

With a 112.1 million service jobs to divvy up Management of Companies and Enterprises has only 1.86 million jobs or 1.44 percent of establishment employment. It helps a little but not much. Job growth here over the last 15 years is less than half the national average so not many new jobs can be expected in this sector.

So far we have looked at the jobs in service sectors of education, professional- scientific-technical services, health care, social services and the management of companies. We found 15.8 million jobs that use college degree skills, which are 61.2 percent of the 25.8 million jobs using college degree skills just mentioned. There are 71.8 million jobs left in 12 more service sectors, but only 10 million professional jobs that go in them. With major service providing sectors behind us we are running short of professional employment. We have not looked at financial services. That will be next.

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