The biggest share of jobs ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ will create in the next two years won’t require even a high school diploma.
That sector of the economy will increase by more than 6.6 percent, new figures from the state Department of Administration on Thursday showed.
The second-biggest boost in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ employment will be in jobs for which only a high school diploma is required.
By contrast, the jobs for which a bachelor’s or master’s degree will be required will grow by less than 5.2 percent. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ns with a doctoral degree will find just a 4.2 percent increase in available jobs.
But a press aide to Gov. Doug Ducey, who has committed to expanding the economy and creating high-wage jobs, said the numbers are not necessarily bad news.
“What the numbers show is all those numbers are growing faster than they were, all levels are growing faster than they were,†said Daniel Scarpinato, a Ducey spokesman. “And that’s a good thing.â€
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But the numbers also show a trend. Now, for example, 27.4 percent of all jobs in the state require no formal education credentials. In two years that will grow to 27.7 percent — the largest growth rate of any sector of the economy. The share of some other sectors will shrink.
Scarpinato said Ducey is focused on landing better jobs.
“When you look at some of the specific job recruitments that the governor has been involved in, they are in fact ones that are very good-paying jobs and that are high-skilled jobs,†he said.
But it takes more than that to make an economy, Scarpinato said.
“The governor has been very clear that all jobs matter, all jobs have value, and all citizens, no matter their educational background, deserve a shot at the American dream,†he said. “And so we’re going to be working on things that grow jobs across all sectors for all individuals in our state, not just the wealthy and not just people with a college education.â€
Doug Walls, research administrator at the Department of Administration, said there may be another reason the rate of job growth is highest among employers who need workers with a minimal education.
“The base employment levels could have fallen much further during the recession,†he said. “We could have lost a lot more jobs within those minimum education-requirement groups and they could now just be seeing recovery.â€
Walls had no specific numbers to back up that theory. But he did point out that the state’s construction industry took the biggest hit during the recession. It plummeted from a seasonally adjusted peak of 244,200 in June 2006 to 109,300 three months later.
The most recent report has construction at 133,700, meaning it has regained about half the jobs it shed.
But economist Lee McPheters said there’s another big factor making the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ economy less dependent on jobs where a higher education is required: lack of money.
A graduate with a degree in engineering probably can find a job in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, but companies elsewhere offer more, said McPheters, who is with the W.P. Carey School of Business at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ State University.
He said he’s not just talking about places like San Francisco where the cost of living is much higher. He said entry-level programming jobs pay more in Austin, Texas; Denver; and Salt Lake City than in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.
That, in turn, leads to the situation where ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ employers say they can’t find enough qualified help. “Probably, they need to finish that statement by saying there’s a shortage of qualified skilled labor at the prevailing wage rates here,†he said.
As evidence, McPheters said nursing jobs pay as much in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ as they do elsewhere because hospitals are forced to compete. But he said software developers and others have counted on the “sunshine factor†to convince folks to work for less in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.
That only works so long. “People have options,†he said. “It’s a competitive world.â€