© 2024 Maine Public

Bangor Studio/Membership Department
63 Texas Ave.
Bangor, ME 04401

Lewiston Studio
1450 Lisbon St.
Lewiston, ME 04240

Portland Studio
323 Marginal Way
Portland, ME 04101

Registered 501(c)(3) EIN: 22-3171529
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Scroll down to see all available streams.

New report predicts labor market realignment in Maine, with growth concentrated in healthcare

Aimee Biba teaches a Certified Nursing Assistant course at Portland Adult Education in 2022. Biba worked as a nurse anesthetist in her native Democratic Republic of Congo, but when she immigrated to the U.S. she had to redo nursing school in order to become a Registered Nurse. A legislative commission this month published several recommendations aimed at creating a pathway for professionals like Biba to reenter the health care field in Maine.
Ari Snider
/
Maine Public
Aimee Biba teaches a Certified Nursing Assistant course at Portland Adult Education in 2022.

Maine's labor market is expected to undergo a gradual but significant realignment over the next decade.

That's according to a new report from the state Department of Labor projecting job change across various professions.

The department's Mark McInerney said many of the professions likely to see the most growth in new job openings are in the healthcare sector.

"We expect that there is going to be somewhat of a shifting of the Occupational Employment in Maine towards healthcare and personal support occupations in particular to meet the needs of a population that is aging," he said.

On the other hand, McInerney said there will likely be less demand for office and administrative support jobs, sectors in which "technology, automation and mechanization are able to perform some routine functions in the workforce that used to be somewhat more labor intensive," he said.

The report predicts that the overall number of nonfarm jobs in Maine will decline slightly in the next few years, but McInerney said increased output is likely to keep the state's economy growing.