Like the nation as a whole, Pennsylvania has suffered through a painful year of recession. Although the unemployment rate in the Keystone State has not risen as far as the national unemployment rate, the state’s jobless rate currently stands at a 25-year high. We fear a jobless recovery may be in the offing over the next year or two, but employment growth in Pennsylvania will eventually turn positive again. Which sectors and areas in Pennsylvania will drive employment growth during the next expansion?

Do not bet on the manufacturing sector to create many jobs. Manufacturing employment has declined by more than 40 percent over the past two decades, and the trend toward increasing levels of automation means that most of the 90,000 manufacturing jobs that the state has lost during the past two years likely are not coming back. Rather, the education and health services industries as well as the professional and business services sector, which together accounted for the lion’s share of employment growth in the state during the last economic expansion, will be called upon again to pace job creation in the years ahead. Although these two sectors pay above-average wages, they generally require higher levels of education and skills, impediments that can be overcome only gradually through application of time and money. Structural unemployment likely will be an important social and political issue for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.