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South Dakota e-Labor Bulletin

November 2024

South Dakota Hot Careers

In the last several Labor Bulletin articles, we’ve covered industry employment trends and occupational employment and demand trends to 2032 based on recent projections completed by our office. To foster informed decision-making by educational program and career planners, we use the projections data in concert with the occupational wage estimates we produce to identify “Hot Careers” for South Dakota.
Hot Careers are high-demand, high-wage occupations that meet the following criteria:

1. The employment level must be projected to grow over the projections period (2022 to 2032).
2. The projected annual openings (a measure of demand for workers) must be greater than the average across all occupations (82) for 2022-2032.
3. The average/mean wage must be greater than the median wage across all occupations. The median wage in 2023 was $43,680.

Additionally, we identify “Top 30” careers, those occupations that meet these three stipulations AND have the greatest projected demand in terms of annual openings. 
To encourage exploration of these good-paying, highly needed occupations in the state, we produce several resources featuring them, all of which are available from our Hot Careers menu page:

• Top 30 Carers flyer (PDF format).
• A table showing all the data for each of the Hot Careers, which explains why the occupation made the list.
• Links to learn more about each occupation in our virtual labor market data system.
• Occupational Profiles (PDF format).
• Links to view current job openings.
• An option to explore the Hot Careers by level of education recommended.

The intent of Hot Careers is not to deter decision-makers away from the hundreds of other occupations offering opportunities in South Dakota. To that end, we offer additional resources for decision-makers to explore all occupations. Those making career decisions can explore occupations matching their interests based on the results of the O*Net Interest Profiler, our own South Dakota Career Interest Survey, and other interest assessments using John Holland's six personality types (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Enterprising, and Conventional). Additionally, South Dakota youth familiar with the 16 career clusters used by the U.S. Department of Education can explore occupations within each cluster. These resource pages of our website were recently updated to reflect the most current information available. The South Dakota Interest Survey is currently being updated; the new version will be available soon.

Each occupation included in an interest area or cluster is linked directly to a wealth of information specific to that occupation in the virtual labor market data system. Codes or links are also provided to learn even more about each occupation in O*Net Online. And finally, explorers can view currently advertised job openings in each occupation.

For education and training program planners, we provide customized reports of projected employment and demand as well as wage estimates for occupations related to any type of program being considered. Again, the goal is informed decision-making with labor market conditions in mind as programs are considered for addition to an institution’s offerings.

For these projects, the requestor provides us with the Classification of Instructional Program (CIP) code and title of program(s) being considered. We then use a standard nationally-used crosswalk of CIP to Standard Occupational Classification codes (the standard occupational taxonomy we use for developing projections and wage estimates). We then provide detailed projected employment, demand, and wage estimates for those related occupations. Additionally, we provide a ratio of the number of currently advertised job openings in each occupation to the number of candidates appropriate for the occupation (those with resumes active in the workforce system).
Our hope in producing these resources is informed and improved decision-making, helping South Dakotans reach their educational goals and career aspirations.

If you are not already familiar with our occupational information resources, check them out today and contact us with any questions.