Many are asking these days: who is hiring now? Where can I get a job? Seems like the priority is no longer about looking for a hot new job anymore; nowadays, it’s unfortunate that people will take almost any paying position available.
While reading the paper recently, I took a look at the job offering page, just out of curiosity. What I noticed was that most ads in this era of steep unemployment are directed toward the medical profession, focusing especially on nurses and nursing aides.
One facility even offers a $7,000 bonus for the first year, others give you $4,000 in cash just for signing up. Case managers, ultrasound technicians, medical records clerks, clinical documentation clerks, pharmacists, and a multiple array of abbreviations such as RN, LVN, CNA dot the employment page. There were also a few ads, very few, for security personnel, heavy forklift operators and body shop technicians.
Who Is Hiring Now?
As a whole, the wanted ads reflect the present situation in the US. With such a heavy load of senior citizens, medical care of all types must be the fastest growing field of employment. Unfortunately, few Americans nowadays are interested in the daily toils and travails of nursing, a labor of love that requires total dedication. It explains the great proportion of nurses from Mexico and the Philippines who are admitted every year to compensate for the lack of American citizens in this field. If you’re unemployed, where can you go to direct your job hunting efforts if you don’t have the training or vocation to become a nurse or nursing assistant?
Jobs In Demand
You may get some job ideas from this list of best jobs to ride out a recession, but for more suggestions, the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics offers the following advice for those who have a high school diploma but who didn’t finish college. They point out these particular occupations, which should fare well during these trying years:
The food industry, which includes preparing food for schools, nursing homes and clubs, should offer a good opportunity for chef aides and short order cooks. Training is on the job, unless you want to attend a vocational school. Note that many high schools offer training in various areas, including food management, so check with the local school if your son or daughter wishes to work in this area after graduating.
Careers that fall into the medical field, such as Occupational Therapist Aide and Physical Training Aide are in demand since many rehab centers cater to the elderly who need to reacquire certain manual skills after an operation. Again, training is on the job and requires only a high school diploma.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics sees these two occupations as growing much faster than others in the next few years.
California requires the following jobs in 2009, according to a state government website; we need correctional officers, carpenters, electricians, people in law enforcement and sales people, all of which offer on the job training. The list is of course not exhaustive, but it could be good news for returning vets who plan on going to college and want to make a few bucks while studying.
Online Job Resources and Employment Sites
Check out these online job resources to aid you in your search:
- Monster.com: ranks in the top 20 of most visited web sites in existence. It’s recognized as one of the most popular job search engines in the world. It’s also the largest, as it houses job postings and resumes numbering in the millions.
- Job.com: a resource for local jobs, career advice and other services to manage your job and career.
- Executive Search Online: a leading nationwide job matching service for more experienced executives. Pay levels for these executive jobs are typically higher.
- Beyond.com: an extensive career network that’s set up as a community of niche sites in various industries.
- EssayEdge: an essay editing resource for those who need a little help with their college, graduate or other academic admission essays. They help out students seeking to gain admission to the colleges and universities of their choice.
- ResumeEdge: a resume editing resource for those who need a little help writing a high quality resume and / or cover letter. They are the leading provider of resume writing services online and the chosen resume partner of well-known job sites such as Yahoo! Hot Jobs, CareerJournal and Dice.com.
- Resume Rabbit: a resume distribution service that submits your resume to top online job banks such as Monster, HotJobs, Career Builder, Dice, etc, as well as job search engines.
- Snag A Job: a tool to help you find hourly jobs. This job site specializes in finding part-time and full-time hourly jobs.
- Yahoo Hot Jobs: a popular online job board.
Massive Job Losses Abound
The areas that suffered the most mass lay-offs in January 2009, again according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, were in order of importance:
- Temporary help (makes sense)
- Bus transportation for schools and employees (how do kids go to school?)
- Light truck manufacturing (same as cars)
- Automobile manufacturing (no surprise there)
- Hotels and motels, except casinos (Hmmm…)
- Movie industry (that’s a surprise indeed)
- Department stores (of course, no money to spend at the mall)
- Suppliers of automobile parts (logical)
- Plastic manufacturers (which depend largely on automobiles)
As you’d expect, these numbers vary by region and by state. Detroit has been hammered by the recession because it relies so much on one industry, so if you can help it, avoid places that have a high reliance on a single source of work. Or move if you can (a survey revealed that 7 out of 10 Americans would move if they could).
Where Can I Get A Job?
Yahoo! Hot Jobs recommends the following areas as offering the most promise: Accountants, Nursing Administrators, Management Analysts, Technical Writers and, surprise (!), Massage Therapists (must be all the demand from stressed out job hunters). Except for massage techniques and skills which can be learned quickly, the other positions do require college degrees or associate degrees at a minimum. So if you are a high school graduate, prepare your future accordingly.
Best of luck on your job hunt!
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Another thing to look at: find the low-cost provider in your industry. Sometimes it takes a recession for people to switch from a big, ‘enterprise’ solution to something much cheaper — Google, for example, was able to provide great service in the post-dot.com bust, because it wasn’t demanding the giant payments that other search providers used to ask for. This is the kind of time when Fortune 500 companies make headlines for laying off 10% of their workforce, while their smaller competitors quietly triple their headcount.
Any certified medical professional will have better luck these days. If you are looking for work. Consider getting the CNA. It doesn’t take long. The work isn’t glorious, but it’s work, with benefits.
If I were laid off this week I would look for temp work. Companies still have needs. Since they don’t know where they will be in a year, they want temps and contract work.
Medical fields are always looking for people and usually a very job safe industry. Always more people who will need medical attention and we are understaffed right now. Education is also something that can always be used.
I used to work in the medical research field and I loved it. But I also worked my way right out of a job as well.
Working there was very rewarding but also mentally trying. It is not always easy to see people at their worst and to know that won’t get better.
It takes a special kind of person to work in the medical field and I hope it doesn’t get saturated with the typical non caring person during these hard economic times.
The unemployment figures that were released today were depressing… 8.1% unemployment, that doesn’t even count people who have given up (though it hasn’t been long enough for that to set in yet). I’m surprised massage therapists are in demand, you’d think that would be considered something you could cut back on…
DC will be one of the better places over the next year. Yes, I know it is heresy to suggest a government job. As someone who has worked both government and private sector jobs for significant periods of time I can tell you there are almost as many useless people in companies as in the government.
I have a lot of experience in the food industry, but I really hate it and hope that I never have to get back into it. If I did, though, I would take my knowledge from working for the family catering business and start that up again – if I’m getting back into food, it won’t be by working for someone else!
Chad, why is it heresy to suggest a gov’t job? It offers a lot of benefits, job security, and decent pay. In these trying times, I can think of much worse areas. Stephanie has the right idea, starting your own business with your experience and skills in the field of food; people have to eat, right? Craig is right on the money; the medical field is not suffering, on the contrary, baby boomers have a retirement income, Medicare and cash to spend. Not glamorous you say; what can be more ennobling than making people healthy?
Thank you guys for making this site a popular destination for meaningful discussions; economics is not about money, it’s about ordinary human beings trying to make a living.
I hear a lot on national TV news how the medical field is one of the few safe places to be, but I don’t see it around me. The hospitals are laying off nurses and cutting back on staff. I just read a local article today about how they are seeing huge dropoffs in revenue at hospitals, as less people have insurance.
Despite this, I just posted a blog entry about how I am hiring where I work (engineering field) so click the link above if interested. There are some companies still out there looking to expand.
Another option would be to look to work outside the country. This may be a good time to go an work in other countries where the recession has not hit so bad. Once such country is India, though there are job losses in India, but not as much as in the US. Also the market and economy is not that bad because of the non dependence on exports and imports. Generally the Telephone, retail, medical, and auto industries are growing. You can also find lateral hirings in Software companies. The number of startups have also increased and they will need people with experience who have worked in startups in the Valley.
You can find quite a number of jobs in India on JobsByRef.com
I think with an aging population the health care industry is and will be the hot ticket for some time to come. Therapists jobs especially!
I agree that demographics point towards opportunities in the health care field being available for quite some time. For the most part, these jobs are secure, as it is difficult to outsource most of them. It may also be time for some high school students to start considering a trade in addition to a college degree, as trade jobs also cannot be outsource. For students looking for job opportunities, one good resource is the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook. It gives descriptions of jobs, educational requirements, and predicted hiring trends.
I’m a hard worker looking for work A.S.A.P!