Some industries still screaming ‘Help Wanted’
December 10, 2008 by Jim GiulianoPosted in: Hiring, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Marketplace, Retention and turnover
Yes, the economy is shedding jobs overall. Two sectors are bucking the trend.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) figures showed we’ve lost almost two million jobs this year, and the unemployment rate is creeping toward 7%. Still, if you look in the right places, jobs are available.
Health services. The job market in health care is healthy. Consider:
- In the last 12 months, the industry has added 369,000 jobs.
- In November alone — a real down period for the overall job market — employment in the health field expanded by 34,000 full-time positions.
- The placement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas said it has an abundance of openings in health-services firms, such as pharmaceutical makers.
- Nursing schools are gearing up for the surge, too. The Columbia University School of Nursing reports that applications are up 50% from last year, as students get wind of the openings and opportunities in the field.
Education. Learning is hot. As the job market tightens, more and more people — to increase their marketability — head back to school to sharpen their skills or learn new ones. And education providers are anticipating that Washington will loosen up on grants and other types of funding to workers who are trapped in failing industries.
The numbers: While not quite as robust as health care, the figures for education hiring still are strong. DOL’s figures show the sector added 9,800 jobs in November — many of which were in nonteaching, support roles.
The weak spots
A lot of sectors suffered in November, but the DOL’s figures show which industries took the biggest job hits:
- Manufacturing jobs were down 85,000 for the month and 604,000 since the beginning of the year.
- Openings in construction dropped by 82,000 for the month; the industry has seen a total drop of 780,000 since the peak employment period of September 2006.
- As people whittle down their budgets to the essentials, fewer take vacations: Employment in the leisure and hospitality field fell by 76,000 jobs in November. Especially hard hit were restaurants and other food-service providers.
Tags: Columbia University, department of labor, dol, jobs, unemployment
January 5th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I am intrigued to see that “education” is supposedly an industry that is adding jobs. As a high school teacher, what I’ve been noticing are layoffs and cutbacks, unless you haoppen to be lucky enough to have tenure, and even then, there are no guarantees. So I am wondering: where are these new education jobs, and how do you search for them?
Paul
March 17th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
I think you are in set environment, meaning that high school attendance depends on people growth and not the economy. The trend that is growing in education is for an older crowd. The people that are having to change careers at an older age because the industry they were in collapsed e.g Auto. More and more people see hope on being trained in two fields rather than one. At least that’s what I am seeing.
Jo
March 26th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I think the increased job openings reported in the field of “education” may be post high-school, i.e. in technical training & continuing education. People can then receive certifications in other fields and hopefully find new jobs. We are certainly learning of MANY lay-offs and cut-backs K-12.