America’s 25 Thriving Industries

Promoters without facilities — or those who promote or organize live events, concerts, conventions, fairs, or festivals in venues owned by others — is a rapidly growing industry. Over the last decade, the number of Americans working in the sector climbed by nearly 70%. As is often the case, growing demand has translated to rapid wage growth. The average annual wage for promoters without facilities climbed nearly 50% from 2008 to 2017.

The all other information services industry covers a range of information occupations outside of news, web search portals, libraries, and internet publishing. These include jobs in stock-photo agencies, telephone-based information services, and broadband internet service providers. In the last 10 years, employment in all other information services increased by 80%. As demand for workers increased, so did wages. The average industry wage of $53,146 is nearly double what it was in 2008.

Outpatient care centers provide health care services to ambulatory patients who do not require inpatient treatment. While employment growth in a number of industries in the ambulatory health care sector, such as outpatient mental health care and home health services outpaced the national rate over the past decade, growth in other outpatient care centers — outpatient sleep disorder clinics, biofeedback centers, and birth centers are a few examples — has grown at more than 15 the pace of the U.S. workforce as a whole.

The professional and technical services sector comprises establishments engaged in various support activities for advanced services that often require a high degree of expertise and training. While employment growth in a number of industries in the sector, such as computer systems design, building inspection services, and environmental consulting, outpaced the national employment growth rate over the past decade, growth in other, more specialized professional and technical services — handwriting analysis, weather forecasting, and arbitration services are a few examples — grew by 88.4% from 2008 to 2017. Over the same period, wages rose by 24.8%, roughly keeping pace with overall wage growth.

Alcohol consumption tends to increase with disposable income. As the average disposable personal income in the United States rose from about $36,000 in 2008 to $45,000 in 2017, the number of distilleries rose nearly seven-fold, from 117 to 805 — the second largest establishment growth of any industry. While employment growth did not keep pace with the industry’s establishment growth, and as a result the size of the average distillery got smaller over that time period, the liquor industry still had one of the largest worker increases of any industry. The number of distillery workers rose by 93.6% from 2008 to 2017, about 17 times the national employment growth for all occupations of 5.4%.