[pjc50]

Those have always offered career progression, though. Whether the industry is growing is a different variable to whether someone is growing in competence.

Some environments require progression as a sort of anti-stasis measure. Famously including army officers, not exactly a growth industry either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_or_out

[nradov]

Always? Growth in educational administration and local government employment is mostly a post-WWII phenomenon. Fortunately that's now starting to turn around as the level of waste is enormous: the majority of white-collar workers in those fields produce very little value that contributes to the organization's core mission. They're not directly teaching students or fixing roads. Some level of administrative overhead is necessary to keep things running but in general we're way past the optimal level. Ideally there should be huge cuts to save costs and negative career progression with some management employees being moved back to individual contributor roles.