COVID-19 and the Changing Job Market | COVID-19 and Higher Ed: NEBHE Biweekly Update

COVID-19 and Higher Ed: Biweekly Update

July 10, 2020

Updates from New England Institutions

Check out NEBHE's COVID-19 updated dashboard for complete data

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HEIs' plans for fall curriculum delivery*

Fully Online Delivery: 22
Fully On-Campus Delivery: 68
Dual Delivery: 82

*N.B.: Many of the above listed plans for the fall have been announced informally and are, therefore, merely tentative. The majority of HEIs plan to make formal announcements about AY20-21 later in the summer.

Number of HEIs that have included protocol for the following features as part of their fall reopening plans:

Testing: 75
Contact tracing: 33
Active monitoring: 41
Quarantine procedures: 47
Employee protocol: 48
Athletics: 10
Infrastructure adjustments: 78
Scheduling changes: 69
Phased return: 42
Liability protection: 22

Resource Spotlight

How the New England Job Market Has Changed During the Current Health Crisis

In May, NEBHE explored Emsi's proprietary job postings data from April 2019 and April 2020 to discern how and to what extent employment opportunities have changed in New England since the start of the current health crisis.

This week, we revisit the data to review Emsi's job postings data from June 2020 to see how the region's job market has changed over recent weeks.

See the complete state-by-state data fact sheets here.

Summary of Updated Data:

NUMBER OF JOB POSTINGS : On July 9, the U.S. Labor Department reported that new unemployment claims across the nation dropped to 1.3 million the previous week. In line with this report, job postings in New England were up slightly (+0.6%) in June 2020 over April 2020 . The greatest increase in overall job postings during this period occurred in Massachusetts, in which there were 2.7% more jobs posted in June 2020 than April 2020. Despite the slight growth in job postings across the region, job postings in June 2020 compared to April 2020 were down in two states: Maine (-7.9%) and Rhode Island (-6.9%).

OCCUPATIONAL SHIFTS: Since April 2020, the top occupations in each state have remained relatively steady , with the biggest shift being merely the order in which the occupations were ranked. In general, some of the most common top occupations in the region include registered nurses , heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers , and software developers .

HEALTHCARE-RELATED JOB POSTINGS: In April 2020, employment opportunities in healthcare had increased slightly since April 2019 in three New England states — Connecticut (+5.3%), Massachusetts (+5.6%), and Rhode Island (+1.6%) — and decreased elsewhere in the region — Maine (-12.5%), New Hampshire (-5.9%), and Vermont (-6.3%). By June 2020, job postings in the healthcare sector had grown since April 2020 in five New England states — by an average of 8.5% across the region. The growth in healthcare-related job opportunities in the region ranged from in increase of 1.1% in Maine to a 13.6% surge in Massachusetts during the same period. In Rhode Island — the only New England state to see a decrease in health care-related job postings between April 2020 and June 2020 — postings were down 0.1%.

Monthly Job Posting Trends in New England (All Jobs)

September 2016-Present

Questions? Feedback? Email Stephanie Murphy at smurphy@nebhe.org .

For more, visit NEBHE's COVID-19 Resource Page

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