Report: Education Jobs are Not Just For Teachers

Education is more than three times as important to Boston as it is to the average American city, according to a report from the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

The industry employs more than 50,000 people in Boston, according to the report, and those jobs are more scattered throughout the city’s neighborhoods than jobs in most sectors. 

While many education jobs cluster in Fenway and Back Bay, other neighborhoods get a large share of the work due to the distribution of primary, secondary and post-secondary schools.

Charlestown, for instance—in addition to its city primary and secondary schools— serves as home to the MGH Institute for Health Professions and Bunker Hill Community College. That’s a lot of education for a community with a population less than 20,000.

As the city grows, so does the educational sector. In 2001, 43,662 worked for a school in some capacity. By 2010, that number swelled to 50,247, and researchers at the Boston Redevelopment Authority predict that the sector will expand to about 55,500 jobs by 2015.

While teachers will fill many of those jobs—more than 1,000 teachers worked in mainstream Boston high school classrooms alone in 2010—educational institutions also spawn a network of support jobs.

The report includes a list of the top 10 most populous education job functions in Boston. Office clerks and administrative assistants took the top two spots on that list. Secretaries ranked fifth, and custodians ranked seventh.

For more, see the full report.