In sharp contrast to today's tepid job growth, employment will pick up later this decade and feature some unusual twists ? from the rise of sales jobs to the dearth of 'green' ones. Here's a guide to help navigate it.
This is the cover story in the Feb. 4 issue of The Christian Science MonitorWeekly.
John Kehe staff illustration
EnlargeThe mustachioed patient is surprisingly vibrant ? for a dummy. He moves. He complains that he wants something to drink. The nurses confer, raise him to a sitting position, and then consult with a "doctor" by phone.
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Hour after hour, groups of four student nurses at Boston's Northeastern University go through a training session at the school's mock emergency room. After four to five years of schooling, they'll venture out into a job market that will be as attentive to them as they are to their smocked "patient." The US economy is expected to add more registered nurses (RNs) from 2010 to 2020 than workers in any other job occupation, according to projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
"I have a few friends who recently graduated and got jobs right away," says Carly Small, a sophomore nursing student.
Across the Charles River at the Red Cross in Cambridge, Mass., class is also in session. The students are learning basic tasks on their way to becoming home health aides: from the proper way to wash hands to how to move people from lying on their backs to their sides. The job market embraces them enthusiastically, too. Home health aides represent the second-fastest growing occupation, the BLS projects.
"I decided to start this for a better future for my kids," says Evelyn Perez, a single mom with three kids.
The two training sessions going on a few cobblestoned blocks apart in the Boston area highlight an unusual dimension of tomorrow's job market: Demand for workers should be strong on both ends of the skill spectrum. It's those in the middle who may want to look at their r?sum?s.
While the students at Northeastern will take four to five years to complete their nurses' training, the home health aide students will complete their training in four weeks. The RNs can expect much better pay: Their median salary was $64,690 in 2010. Home health aides made only $20,560, which is below poverty level for a household of four.
Yet people pursuing both career paths will likely find jobs, which is indicative of a far broader trend in America. While employment growth is sluggish right now ? the unemployment rate ticked up in January to 7.9 percent, according to the BLS, with the?economy creating only 157,000 net new jobs?? it's expected to pick up later this decade. Most of that growth will occur at the top and the bottom of the earnings scale. Among the top 20 fastest-growing professions from 2010 to 2020, according to the BLS, will be high-skill jobs like biomedical engineers, college professors, and veterinarians (see chart, page 30). But the list will also include many low-skill occupations, like helpers for carpenters, plumbers, and brick masons; glaziers; and cashiers.
Part of this is a fluke of the business cycle. Because of the Great Recession, which walloped the construction industry, jobs in various building trades will have to surge just to get back to normal levels of employment. But there's more involved in the process than that.
The main reason the low and high ends of the job market are growing is that the middle is getting squeezed. Different explanations are put forward for this: government policy, the decline of unions, offshoring jobs. But the prevailing theory is that middle-skill positions are disappearing because of technology.
1?|?2?|?3?|?4?|?5Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/kMpfd93B3pA/10-surprises-about-tomorrow-s-job-market
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