International Project Management Day is a holiday that recognizes the hard work project managers must do and how challenging it can be to pull off some projects. Project managers are responsible for leading teams of professionals to complete projects and setting deadlines that support business initiatives.

This requires them to make short- and long-term plans, delegate tasks, and make effective business decisions—all of which can be quite difficult. With that being said, this holiday also encourages project managers and other individuals involved in complicated and/or large projects to roll up their sleeves and get some work done. This day is observed annually on the first Thursday in November.

The History of International Project Management Day

Lori Milhaven and Laverne Johnson first created this holiday in 2004, with the help of the International Institute of Learning (IIL) team. They had firsthand experience with the hard work that project managers are often tasked with and decided to create a holiday that recognized their efforts.

Some Interesting Facts About Project Managers

We wanted to provide our readers with some of the latest statistics on project managers, so we did a little bit of research and came up with some pretty interesting ones. We then selected the facts that we thought were the most interesting and placed them in the following list.

• Approximately 10% of every dollar spent on a project is wasted due to poor project performance.
• Almost half of all project managers do not use project management software.
• Every year, almost a quarter of a million project management jobs open up in the United States.
• By 2028, it’s estimated that employers will need approximately 88 million individuals in project management roles.
• A U.S.-based project manager can earn an average base pay of about $90,000 per year.
• Approximately 877,000 project managers are working in the U.S.
• There are approximately 16 million project managers employed worldwide.
• In 2018, approximately 68% of organizations used outsourced project managers to manage their projects.
• It’s been estimated that almost 80% of successful projects utilize project management software.

Observing International Project Management Day

Celebrating project managers and the work they do is one way to observe this holiday. This can be done in the office or during an after-work celebration. People can also use the hashtag #InternationalProjectManagementDay on social media to spread the word about this holiday and/or to give online appreciation to project managers.