Family-Supporting Jobs Report projects employment growth for workers with less than a bachelor's degree through 2026

The Baltimore Metropolitan Council (BMC) will release the 2018 Family-Supporting Jobs Report on Tuesday, July 10. The release will include a stakeholder discussion of the report’s findings from 7:30 to 9 a.m. at BMC’s office, located at 1500 Whetstone Way, Suite 300, Baltimore, MD 21230. The purpose of the report is to help job seekers, workforce development professionals, educators and employers make informed decisions about career choice and training opportunities in the Baltimore region. 

“A four-year college degree simply is not the best fit for every person. Our report shows that there are paths to family-supporting careers for the 60 percent of working-aged adults in our region who don’t have a bachelor’s degree,” said Mike Kelly, executive director of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council. “We’re excited to share the study with our workforce development partners in the region, and we hope that it will help align resources toward training for these in-demand occupations.”

Read key findings from the 2018 Family-Supporting Jobs Report
Read the 2018 Family-Supporting Jobs Report

The report is a comprehensive assessment of the employment opportunities in family-supporting jobs in central Maryland. Family-supporting jobs are defined as occupations that pay an hourly wage that allows working adults with less than a bachelor’s degree to provide for their family’s needs. For the Baltimore region, the report applies a benchmark average hourly wage of $22.28.
 
Family-supporting jobs will represent 13.8 percent (238,871 jobs) of the Baltimore region’s hiring demand during the next decade. This figure puts the region in the top half of its peers nationally.
 
The report forecasts demand in family-supporting jobs across a range of sectors, and measures of education, work experience, and training. In the region, the following sectors are expected to offer the highest number of family-supporting job opportunities:  construction, business services, and healthcare.
 
Among other factors, the report looks at work experience and on-the-job training requirements to help people better understand the credentials typically expected for various positions. It also identifies the top 50 family-supporting occupations by total demand, median hourly wage, and new job growth.
 
“BMC has done an excellent job in distilling a complex and broad set of data into a useful resource that workforce development professionals and the public can understand,” said Linda Dworak, director of the Baltimore Workforce Funders Collaborative. “I am confident that this report will help workforce development agencies, trainers and individuals meet the changing demands of our region’s employers.”
 
The 2018 report builds upon the Baltimore Regional Talent Development Pipeline Study, released by BMC in 2013. The Talent Development Pipeline Study – a product of the Opportunity Collaborative – found that our region’s job opportunities fell mainly into two categories: jobs requiring at least a bachelor’s degree that pay high wages and jobs that require few technical skills and pay less than a living wage.  The goal of the 2013 report was to identify a set of attainable jobs that could quickly provide, or lead to, a family-supporting wage for a family near the poverty line.