Service Jobs - Non-Profit Organizations

Non-Profit Organizations (revised Fall 2024)

We can sympathize with the drafters and crafters of the North American Industry Classification system. These people are good at organization and classification, but as things went on they found a few industries that would not fit, leftovers too small to stand alone and too disparate to have a common name. Hence, they declared a sector called Other, which is really four sub sectors of very different services. Allow me to give their definition, which I cite exactly.  “Establishments in this sector are primarily engaged in activities, such as equipment and machinery repairing, promoting or administering religious activities, grantmaking, advocacy and providing dry cleaning and laundry services, personal care services, death care services, pet care services, photo finishing services, temporary parking services and dating services.” If you can find a common thread there you are definitely a better person than I am.

The four sub sectors make better sense looked at separately and national industry employment data is reported for the separate sub sectors. The biggest sub sector is a loose amalgam of non-profit organizations, which is the sub sector we want to look at here. The three other sub sectors we look at a little later on. Non-profits job totals have declined slightly over the last five years to just over 2.8 million jobs, not counting 1.550 million more jobs in religious organizations, meaning churches and synagogues, mosques and monasteries.

Besides religion non-profit organizations have grantmaking and giving services giving away money to worthy applicants, or social advocacy organizations promoting causes like wildlife preservation and birth control, or civic and social organizations like scouting, fraternal lodges, or country and social clubs promoting the civic and social interests of members, and finally Business, professional, labor, political and similar organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, International Brotherhood of Teamsters and various PAC’s and Federal Bar Associations.

Work at non-profit organizations tends to be office work, which assures a higher percentage of office jobs in managerial, financial and administrative support occupations than the national average. Specialized professional jobs include human resources, training, and labor relations specialists, and meeting and convention planners, but also social advocacy organizations need professionals to be counselors, social workers and social service specialists where knowledge of social problems and how to solve them requires counseling and social work training. Grant making and giving services may need these specialties to evaluate applications or do other advising.

Media occupations such as public relations specialist have 56.4 thousand jobs, public relations managers have 14.3 thousand more jobs, especially in business, professional, labor, and political organizations. There is no occupation called lobbyist in the Standard Occupational Classification but lobbyists are included in counts of public relations specialists.

Civic and social organizations sub sector, which includes alumni associations, fraternal lodges, social clubs and country clubs, tend to have dining rooms, fitness facilities, and swimming pools so there are food service jobs and jobs as fitness trainers and aerobics instructors, recreation workers, and other support jobs like lifeguard, and childcare.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 213.6 thousand clergy working in religious organizations. Clergy can be clergy working in social service organizations and a few in the government, but only clergy jobs are counted here. Another 231.6 thousand jobs in other religious activities and education work in this sub sector. Many churches run a preschool so there are 72.8 thousand preschool teacher jobs. Other jobs include 40.7 thousand self-enrichment teachers and 28.7 thousand kindergarten, elementary and secondary school teachers also work here. Churches and religious organizations are the largest employers of musicians and singers who actually play and sing for pay; almost 79 thousand jobs. Musicians and singers at schools and colleges teach as their primary activity so their jobs go in education.

The non-profit organizations in this sub sector generated 2.837 million jobs in 2023 but it is only 1.8 percent of establishment employment. Over the 33 years from 1990 to 2024 the annual growth rates averaged .87 percent, lower than the national average so non-profits are relatively less important now than 1990. It is a slow increase in share however so non-profits will not be much help in replacing the lost manufacturing jobs. We have 74.49 million jobs left to fill. We need more service.