October 19, 2014 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Despite a global recession, U.S. nonprofit employment rose steadily during the end of the last decade and beyond, according to new research from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
From 2007 to 2012, the number jobs at organizations registered as charities with the Internal Revenue Service increased 8.6 percent, climbing from 10.5-million to 11.4-million. That figure rose year-to-year throughout the entire five-year stretch, climbing even as the total number of American jobs dropped by 2.7 percent over the same period of time.
“We wondered how that could possibly be,” said Rick Clayton, chief of the division of administrative statistics and labor turnover at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Turns out, strong hiring in education and health care helped buoy the numbers while the rest of the economy bled jobs.
“Both of those industries have continued to grow,” Mr. Clayton told reporters.
Among nonprofits, 67.5 percent of all employees work in health care and social services, according to the 2012 figures. Hospital employees account for 52 percent of that subset and 35.1 percent of the total nonprofit work force. Education workers make up 15.9 percent of all nonprofit employees.
The Bureau’s data also include a state-by-state analysis. It shows employment in the Northeast and upper Midwest was driven in significant part by nonprofit employment. Slightly more than one in four employees in Washington, D.C., for instance, work at a nonprofit organization.
The table below provides a breakdown of the nonprofit work force as well as insight into which types of charity workers fared best during this turbulent economic time.
| Field | Number of Jobs (2012) | Percent Job Growth (Since 2007) | Annual Wage (2012) | Percent Wage Growth (Since 2007) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All fields | 11,426,870 | 8.6% | $46,568 | 16.4% |
| Health care and social assistance | 7,716,964 | 8.2% | $47,324 | 16.8% |
| Educational services | 1,812,270 | 9.9% | $48,548 | 14.7% |
| Other services | 784,675 | 3.6% | $33,257 | 16.9% |
| Arts, entertainment, and recreaction | 289,111 | 13% | $28,106 | 5.5% |
| Professional, scientific, and technical services | 251,288 | 7.1% | $71,221 | 14.9% |
| Management of companies and enterprises | 219,506 | 30.4% | $61,031 | 25% |
| Administrative and support and waste management | 77,766 | 5% | $45,509 | 34.5% |
| Retail trade | 69,678 | 34.3% | $20,617 | 11% |
| Information | 63,351 | -2.5% | $45,572 | 16.6% |
| Real estate and rental leasing | 35,825 | -6.5% | $32,235 | 14% |
| Accomodation and food services | 33,637 | 17% | $19,214 | 9.7% |
| Finance and insurance | 27,849 | -28.9% | $77,144 | 15.2% |
| Transportation and warehousing | 18,393 | 24.8% | $30,632 | 13.8% |
| Construction | 8,526 | 11.9% | $42,624 | 14.6% |
| Manufacturing | 6,266 | -5.6% | $32,480 | -1.6% |
| Wholesale trade | 3,720 | -9.4% | $43,973 | 12.1% |
| Agriculture | 1,788 | 22.5% | $30,656 | 17.1% |
To review the data, visit the Bureau’s website.
