Nonprofit Jobs On The Rise

A new study by Johns Hopkins University is giving job seekers yet another reason to flock towards nonprofit jobs.

The NonProfit Times wrote about the report from the Baltimore, Md.-based school that showed that jobs in the nonprofit sector increased an average of 2.1 percent from 2000 to 2010, while for-profit jobs decreased by an average of 0.6 percent annually.  This trend even held up during the height of the Great Recession (between 2007 and 2009), with nonprofit employment increasing at an average of 1.9 percent per year while for-profit work declined.  The only year in the past decade that nonprofits didn't outperform for-profits was 2005, when both sectors reported a 2-percent increase in jobs.

If you are wondering which industries increased the most, the JHU study has answers to that, too.  It cited the greatest increase in jobs in the following fields: Healthcare, education, and social assistance.  Those three happen to be the largest employers in the nonprofit sector, with healthcare jobs making up 57 percent of the nonprofit workforce.

There was one bit of negative news for nonprofits.  According to the report, for-profit businesses outpaced nonprofit growth when it came to social assistance, education, and nursing home care.  As a result, nonprofits in these fields lost market share to for-profits.  The reasons for this aren't exactly clear, but insiders are blaming market conditions and the moral tenets of competing industries, which tend to become muddled in tough economic times.

You can read more about JHU's study of nonprofit jobs in The NonProfit Times.