LI's dominant future jobs will be business support

Industries of the future on Long Island may be exotic ones like green energy or medical research, but the dominant jobs may be more mundane: professional and business support services.

That includes accountants, attorneys, architects, publicists, temporary office workers, computer services employees and others who help businesses run. Experts expect these jobs to become more prevalent both here and nationally, especially as many smaller companies replace fewer larger ones.

By 2035, these careers will represent the largest segment of Long Island's workforce, experts predict.

"Companies used to have everything in-house," said Jason Aptekar, chief executive of Westbury-based Mithril Technology, which provides computer and information technology services to other companies. "I can hire people who might have otherwise been internal assets to a company. There's always a need [at most companies] for an [information technology] architect, but maybe not a full-time one." 

Rise in outsourcing
Like Mithril with computing services, law firms and even payroll services companies are performing outsourced functions that companies once did themselves. Instead of having accountants and bookkeepers on a payroll, for example, many companies hire an accounting firm that also gives them financial advice, Aptekar said.

"It's basically a continuing trend," said Michael White, executive director of the Long Island Regional Planning Commission. "It's a national trend."

It's a particularly strong trend here. "I'm in the payroll and human resources business, and there are at least 10 competitors," said Rob Basso, chief executive of Advantage Payroll in Freeport. "We've got thousands of clients and we pay 60,000 to 90,000 people through our system."

The reason is that small, high-tech companies need these kinds of services, said Gary Huth, the state Labor Department's principal economist on Long Island. Other small businesses also fuel the growth in this area - many need office managers, accountants, technical support, consulting services and legal help.

 Effects going forward
It's also an unmistakable trend in the council's Long Island 2035 study, which attempts to anticipate how the region will evolve by that year.

"The largest employment growth is expected to occur in the professional and business services industry, with nearly 100,000 new jobs expected between 2010 and 2035," the study says.

Twenty years ago, the sector was fifth largest, with 114,200 jobs accounting for just above 10 percent of the Island's workforce. Now there are 181,700 in the field, 13.8 percent of the workforce, with a forecast for 278,900 by 2035.

That would make professional and business services the Island's dominant source of employment, with 18.3 percent of the workforce, according to the study. It's the third largest now, behind education and health services and government.

Firms are capitalizing on that growth, Huth said.

And Irwin Kellner, chief economist of MarketWatch, said the growing health care industry necessarily will need to employ many nonmedical workers, including clerks, accountants, receptionists and others.

And as new businesses take root, they'll be that much more vital, Huth said. "It's a significant enabler of growth in many other areas," he said.

In fact, Mithril uses professional services even as it provides them. Aptekar said his company isn't big enough for a full-time chief financial officer, so he shares one with other companies.