Over the past year, employment in warehousing jobs has grown at double the pace of average U.S. job growth, according to Andrew Flowers and Valerie Rodden of Indeed.com.
Warehousing employment has risen 90% since 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.To put that number into perspective, the average employment growth is 12% over the same time period.
And over the next 10 years, warehousing and storage employment will grow by 195,700, which would put the field in the 95th percentile of employment gains among 335 industries.
When looking at the employees the research shows, not surprisingly, that Millennials are far less drawn to routine manual labor than other generations. Millennials are 15% less likely than Generation X and 8% less than Baby Boomers to show interest in the field.
The average warehouse employee makes $19.60 an hour and works 42 hours a week. While these wages are lower than the U.S. average of $26.49, the hours worked are much higher than the average of 34.8 hours. On a weekly basis, warehouse workers make about 10% less than the average U.S. worker, but nearly 50% more than the average retail worker.
Given that wage gap one might expect that workers in the hard-pressed brick-and-mortar retail industry would be clamoring for warehouse jobs, but so far that’s not the case. Indeed’s research found that as the brick-and-mortar retail employment has waned, its workers haven’t shown particular interest in warehousing jobs.
That may change, though. With warehouse employment expected to grow 21% over the next 10 years, there’s plenty of room for people to make the leap into the industry.
