Gender mix

• Male engineers account for 77.7% of the skilled engineering workforce in the US.
• Management, business, and financial occupations are occupied by 53.7% of males. 
• Male physicians and surgeons account for 61.6% of the physicians and surgeons workforce in the US, while females dominate professional nursing roles and outnumber men in the overall healthcare sector.

Educational background

• The majority of professional staffing are college educating with 65% of engineers have a bachelor's degree, 32% hold a master's degree, and only 3% have an education that accounts for less than a bachelor's degree.
• Management, business, and financial occupations mostly have a degree in business, engineering, and social sciences. Over 90% of the professional staffing workforce working in management, business, and financial occupations have at least a bachelor's degree.
•  Over 80% of the physicians and surgeons segment of the workforce hold a specialized masters' degree.

Dominant qualifications

• Once again, qualifications for professional staffing differs greatly by industry. There simply does not exist one set of qualifications for the wide-ranging cohort. However, some more common occupations include software developers, miscellaneous engineers, nuclear engineers, and other engineering managers. Industries that employs the majority of engineering majors are architectural and engineering industry.
• Some common qualifications for engineers include degrees from the following institutions: Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Texas A & M University- College Station, Purdue University, and University of Mich.
• Physicians and surgeons hold the majority of degrees in biology, health, and physical sciences.

Typical salary

• The average salary for engineers is $111,636. 
• The average salary for management, business, and financial occupations is $91,611. 
• Physicians and surgeons earn, on average, $233,287 a year. 

The weight of each worker category

•  4.48 million engineers participate in the US workforce.
•  23.2 million people working in management, business, and financial occupations participate in the US workforce.
•  906,000 people work as physicians and surgeons in the US.

Age

• The average age of a person in the engineering workforce who holds a degree in engineering is 43 years old. 
• The average age of a person in the Management, business, and financial occupations is 44.6 years old. 
• In the healthcare profession, when it comes to physicians and surgeons, the average age is 46.8 years old. 

Research Strategy

Gender Mix

• Women: 34.18% (calculations in the attached spreadsheet).
• Men: 65.82% (100%-34.18%)

Weight

• Industrial/ blue-collar occupations comprise 38.43% of all occupations in the United States (calculations can be found in the attached spreadsheet).

Educational Background & Qualifications

• Typically, blue-collar workers do not have a college degree; however, some new manufacturing jobs that require higher skills are driving demand for factory workers with a degree. American manufacturing firms will employ more college graduates than workers in the future.
• As a result of education levels in America rising, there is a shortage of blue-collar workers, who are typically non-graduates.
• Wages of blue-collar workers are growing faster than that of white-collar workers. "Management, Professional, and Related Occupations" have seen a wage growth of 7.5% in the 2016-2018 period, while blue-collar wage growth was over 10% in the same period.
• "Food preparation and serving related occupations" comprise 21.5% of all blue-collar jobs; "transportation and material moving occupations" make 16.5%, and production occupations account for 14.6%. Skills acquired depend on the type of job performed.

Mean Wages by State

• Alabama: $32,577
• Alaska: $48,330
• Arizona: $35,790
• Arkansas: $31,651
• California: $39,297
• Colorado: $38,558
• Connecticut: $40,352
• Delaware: $35,547
• District of Columbia: $44,925
• Florida: $33,324
• Georgia: $32,863
• Guam: $27,747
• Hawaii: $44,132
• Idaho: $33,374
• Illinois: $38,500
• Indiana: $35,025
• Iowa: $35,356
• Kansas: $34,554
• Kentucky: $34,432
• Louisiana: $34,366
• Maine: $34,853
• Maryland: $38,304
• Massachusetts: $41,586
• Michigan: $35,914
• Minnesota: $38,341
• Mississippi: $31,181
• Missouri: $34,418
• Montana: $35,561
• Nebraska: $35,566
• Nevada: $35,812
• New Hampshire: $36,740
• New Jersey: $39,297
• New Mexico: $32,929
• New York: $41,249
• North Carolina: $32,434
• North Dakota: $41,598
• Ohio: $34,738
• Oklahoma: $33,903
• Oregon: $37,803
• Pennsylvania: $35,886
• Puerto Rico: $22,486
• Rhode Island: $37,482
• South Carolina: $32,790
• South Dakota: $32,507
• Tennessee: $32,982
• Texas: $35,081
• Utah: $35,176
• Vermont: $37,879
• Virgin Islands: $33,216
• Virginia: $35,797
• Washington: $43,705
• West Virginia: $34,190
• Wisconsin: $35,820
• Wyoming: $42,456
• State-specific mean wages for industrial/ blue-collar workers (and related calculations) have been presented in the attached spreadsheet.

Gender Mix

• Women: 71.6% 
• Men: 28.4% (100% - 71.6%)

Dominant Qualifications

• The entry-level education requirement for most office and administrative support occupations is high school diploma or equivalent, except bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks (college), and desktop publishers (associate degree).

• Individuals with bachelor's degrees are usually preferred for the roles of administrative officers, administrative service managers.

Educational Background

• Top office and administrative support staff bachelor's majors: business (31.1%), social sciences (7.81%), education (6.83%), communications (6.69%), psychology (5.72%), and visual & performing arts (5.2%).
• Top office and administrative support staff master's majors: business (23.7%), social sciences (9.85%), education (10.9%), psychology (7.23%), and engineering (5.2%).
• Top office and administrative support staff professional degree majors: business (21.2%), social sciences (12%), education (9.95%), biology (7.56%), psychology (6.46%), and health (5.23%).
• Top office and administrative support staff doctorate majors: biology (12.2%), social sciences (10%), education (9.38%), business (8.66%), physical sciences (7.46%), engineering (6.52%), health (6.3%), and psychology (5.85%).
• Based on the aforementioned data, top majors for office and administrative support staff are business, social sciences, and education.

Geographically Dispersion

• States that have the highest share of office and administrative support jobs in America:
• California: 13.81% (2,438,780/ 17,655,000)
• Texas: 11.30% (1,994,750/ 17,655,000)
• New York: 8.39% (1,480,630/ 17,655,000)
• Florida: 8.23% (1,452,150/ 17,655,000)
• Pennsylvania: 5.26% (928,440/ 17,655,000)
•  Arizona, Florida, New Hampshire, Alaska and Texas have the highest concentration of office and administrative support staff jobs in America.

Mean Wages by State

• State-specific mean wages for office and administrative support occupations have been populated in the attached spreadsheet.

Weight

• Office and administrative support occupations comprise 11.33% (17,655,000/ 155,761,000) of all occupations in the United States.

Race

• White: 77.1%
• Black: 14.4%
• Asian: 4.6%
• Hispanic: 16.9% 

Age Range

• 16 to 19: 3.24% (572,000/ 17,655,000)
• 20 to 24 : 11.30% (1,995,000/ 17,655,000)
• 25 to 34 : 22.07% (3,896,000/ 17,655,000)
• 35 to 44 : 18.53% (3,272,000/ 17,655,000)
• 45 to 54 : 20% (3,530,000/ 17,655,000)
• 55 to 64 : 18.35% (3,240,000/ 17,655,000)
• 65+: 6.51% (1,150,000/ 17,655,000)

Upskilling

• Improving Microsoft Office skills can be valuable as they can significantly increase work efficiency.
• Top professionals in administration are learning design tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Knowledge of HTML and WordPress enables administrative professionals to update websites, manage content, and customize email templates.
• Acquiring project management skills improves productivity and transparency and enhances overall skill value.
• Certifications are hiring criteria for 91% of managers. The aforementioned skills are best acquired through certificate programs.

Higher-level Roles

• Higher level roles within administration include roles such as senior executive assistant (median salary of $63,750), customer service manager ($47,000), office manager ($46,250), and medical coding manager ($68,000).

Introduction

Basic Demographics

• Men and women in the US are now equally likely to be temporary workers. In past years, women had been slightly more likely to be a temporary employee.
• Asians and Hispanics are slightly more likely than White and Black workers to be temporary or contingent.
• Temporary workers were likely to be younger, with 28% of those under 25 working contingently, compared to 12% of those over 25.
• Workers employed temporarily by staffing firms were most common in California, where 2.8 million were employed in the past year.
• Temporary of contingent workers, defined as those who did not expect their current job to last, represent 3.8% of the total US workforce.

Educational Background, Skills & Qualifications

• Temporary workers existed across all levels of education. 
•  14% held less than a high school diploma.
• They were more likely to have a bachelor's degree than traditional workers (44% vs 41%). 
• They were likely to be currently pursuing some form of education, with 3 in 5 contingent workers enrolled in school of some kind.
• Temporary workers had skills of a wide range, as contingent workers extend across all major occupations.
• However, construction work, education, and health service skill sets were most common.
• Contingent workers were less likely to be skilled in management, business, or financial operations than traditional workers.

Salary

• The average wage in the US for a temporary worker is $17 per hour. 

• Temporary workers make significantly lower salaries than traditional workers, with the average weekly earnings of $685 for temporary workers compared to $886 for traditional workers.

• This works out to be approximately $35,620 per year (Calculation- 52x$686 )

• The average temporary worker salary in California, where temporary workers were most common, is $39,700. 

• However, some highly skilled temporary workers can make over $100 per hour.

Training, Wage Progression, and Challenges

•  81% of temporary and freelance workers surveyed would like additional training.

• Two of the top areas where training was sought in were networking and new skills in their area of expertise.

• Temporary workers were most likely to be working part-time, with two in five working under 35 hours per week.

• However, many of these workers were not in part-time temporary work by choice, with 55% surveyed noting they would prefer a permanent job.

•  Only 1 out of 3 surveyed preferred their existing temporary work arrangement.

• Benefits were another challenge for this group, with temporary workers half as likely to have employer-provide health insurance than permanent workers.

• Only 23% of contingent workers were eligible for retirement benefits.

• It is also noted by one source that the business model within the temporary staffing industry makes these employees more susceptible to abuse and illegal conduct.

Research Strategy