20 of the fastest-growing occupations in the U.S.

While the U.S. economy has seemingly teetered on the edge of a recession over the last year, there is some good news for workers: job growth hasn't been completely stunted. 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of jobs will increase by 8.3 million by 2031. But different occupations — a term for a broad category of jobs that share similar skills, education or training — are bound to grow at different rates. USAFacts, a non-partisan and non-profit organization dedicated to providing data and research on U.S. issues, ranked the top 20 occupations for projected job growth. 

Nurse practitioners came in first, with demand estimated to increase by nearly 46%. Overall, healthcare support occupations are predicted to grow the fastest, gaining 924,000 jobs and employing 4.6 million workers in 2031. 

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"One thing that stands out when looking at the occupations with the highest projected growth and the occupations that will add the most total jobs is there are many jobs in healthcare fields," says Nate Johnold, marketing manager at USAFacts. "This could be due to the fact that our population is getting older. As both the baby boomer population and current healthcare workers age, the country will have a growing need for healthcare workers."

However, healthcare workers aren't the only ones in high demand; taxi drivers, restaurant cooks and theater ushers also made the list, hinting at an economy that needs to be professionally diverse to thrive.

Here are the 20 occupations with the highest projected growth by 2031.