Purchasing

Mary Walker

1 in over 500,000
August 16, 2007

The old saying, the government does a study on every thing, might be true. In their occupational outlook handbook info, purchasing managers, buyers and purchasing agents held about 520,000 jobs in 2004. The following tabulation shows the distribution of employment by occupational specialty:

• Purchasing agents, except wholesale, retail and farm products               273,000
• Wholesale and retail buyers, except farm products                                 156,000
• Purchasing Managers                                                                            75,000
• Purchasing agents and buyers, farm products                                         16,000

Overall employment of purchasing managers, buyers and purchasing agents is expected to grow slower than the average for all occupations through the year 2014. Offsetting some declines for purchasing workers in the manufacturing sector will be increases in the service sector. ISM has a “services group” which holds a conference yearly. This group is continuing to grow in members.

Companies in the service sector, which have typically made purchases on ad hoc basis, are beginning to realize that centralized purchasing offices may be efficient. Also, many purchasing agents are now charged with procuring services that were traditionally done in-house in the past, such as computer and IT (information technology) support in addition to traditionally contracted services such as advertising. In days past, we had a big IT department, now they are many miles away and just log in to your computer and work on it.

Demand for purchasing workers will be limited by improved software, which has eliminated much of the paperwork involved in ordering and procuring supplies, and also by the growing number of purchases being made electronically through the internet and electronic data exchange (EDI). The way we do business has changed, however it has not necessarily decreased the problems. The non-conformance issues are growing: material not received, wrong quantities, damages, shortages, price issues and more. You can go on and on of things that take up the time of a buyer. The new software packages do aid in the buying with their magic formulas and calculations, but you still face the stress of the problems of non conformance issues.

By increased globalization of the U.S. economy, as more materials and supplies come from abroad, firms have begun to outsource more of their purchasing duties to foreign purchasing agents who are located closer to the foreign supplier of goods and material they will need.

More and more companies are requiring buyers to have a bachelor’s degree. Government agencies and larger companies usually require a master’s degree in business or public administration for top-level purchasing positions. Some people will argue the fact that a degree is not worth what it costs you, in time and money. Think about it, without it, you can not even get in the door to some companies. It is a door opener to opportunity

For more info, go to the BLS.gov section on purchasing.

Posted by Mary Walker on August 16, 2007 | Comments (0)