Clearly, there's money to be made in space. SpaceX's historic initial public offering minted a $2 trillion company. And even as shares in Elon Musk's company come down from their IPO high , there remains an underlying boom in the space economy that is creating a new job market for Americans. The space economy is growing domestically and around the globe, at an annual rate of 9% , according to the World Economic Forum. In the U.S., gross output in the space economy increased by nearly $51.5 billion from 2012 to 2023. The sector's total value reached an all-time high of $613 billion in Q2 2025, according to the Space Foundation. As the space economy grows, it is spurring national job creation. In the private sector alone, over 373,000 employees work space-sector jobs, according to the most recent estimates from the Labor Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis. That remains a small fraction of the total U.S. private-sector workforce, but one that is growing rapidly. Space-sector employment increased by 27% in the decade through 2024, far outpacing total private-sector employment growth at 14%, and with its rate of growth accelerating in the more recent years. From 2019 to 2024 alone, the space economy's job market grew by 18%. Young workers in particular have played a major role in this growth. According to the U.S. Census Bureau , nearly half of the new jobs being added to the space economy are filled by workers under the age of 35, accounting for a 3% total increase in young workers' share of its workforce from 2014 to 2024. Across most major lines of work in the space sector, there has been an increase in the share of young workers employed. That means the sector isn't just growing, but also defying the trend of decreasing young worker share seen throughout other Census-surveyed sectors, including professional services and media. Dean Boerner, a lead data scientist at Revelio Labs, found in his recent research looking across tens of thousands of postings from hundreds of space sector companies that the industry is significantly outperforming the broader labor market in providing current career opportunities. "Active postings by companies operating within the space economy are up more than 40% year-over-year as of this month (and have generally been elevated this entire year, compared to 2025)," Boerner said. "U.S. postings overall are down about 5%, making the rise in opportunities within aerospace particularly striking," he added. Compensation for aerospace-centered work is attractive. The private space sector boasts a combined annual payroll of around $57.9 billion , with median annual salaries varying by occupation, but typically within the range of $100,000 to $135,000 . Base salaries, however, are only one part of the employee compensation packages seen in the private sector. Large private space market employers often offer stock options, giving employees the opportunity to get in early on what could become a major publicly-traded company. In the case of SpaceX's historic IPO, thousands of current and former employees became millionaires overnight...
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