National Career Clusters

National Career Clusters 

Here we see the 16 national career clusters as maintained by The United States Department of Labor.

  • Agriculture, food and natural resources
  • Architecture and construction
  • Arts, A/V Technology and communications
  • Business management and administration
  • Education and training
  • Finance
  • Government and public administration
  • Health science
  • Hospitality and tourism
  • Human services
  • Information technology
  • Law, public safety, corrections and security
  • Manufacturing
  • Marketing
  • Science, technology, engineering and mathematics
  • Transportation, distribution and logistics

What is a career cluster?

A career cluster is a grouping of career pathways and occupations requiring similar skills. For example, underneath the Finance cluster there are career pathways like “Accounting” and “Insurance”. Under “Accounting” there are specific occupations like auditor or accountant. This categorization is maintained through all 16 of the nationally recognized clusters.
 

What is an occupation? 

An occupation is a set of activities or tasks that employees are paid to perform. An industry is a group of businesses or organizations with similar activities, products,  or services. Employees who do essentially the same tasks are in the same occupation but may not work in the same industry. Every occupation has a mix of specialized knowledge, skills, and abilities. Once a student has identified one or several occupations that they are interested in, they may begin identifying the specific education required to enter that occupation. A single occupation, for instance, an accountant; can be an occupation in many different industries. An accountant can work in the oil industry, the air transportation industry, or the sports industry, while still having the same set of task and skills. Educators should help prepare students on a personal level to help ensure students are prepared to transition into occupations after graduating, while not necessarily preparing them for a specific industry.

Often, when students take some sort of career interest survey or profiler, such as the career cluster inventory within the OhioMeansJobs K-12 website, the results are a score hierarchy representing potential student interests in these clusters. As such, the results help students discover their interests and passions while empowering them to choose a career pathway that will ultimately lead to success.

Last Modified: 10/11/2022 9:44:26 AM