Posted on 03/06/2006 6:26:48 AM PST by Angus MacGregor
Today's Most Unpopular Jobs
By Laura Morsch, CareerBuilder.com writer
Is there a severe labor shortage looming for the United States? It depends whom you ask. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects a labor force of 162.3 million people by 2012. At the same time, the BLS predicts that the 2012 economy will require 165.3 million jobs to be filled.
For years, doomsayers have interpreted these statistics to mean the economy will experience a shortage of 3 million workers. But this simply isn't true, insisted Michael W. Horrigan in the February 2004 issue of the BLS' Monthly Labor Review.
Horrigan wrote that multiple job holding and statistical differences between the BLS and Current Employment Statistics surveys, not an impending labor shortage, account for the differences between the numbers.
Although the BLS says there will not be a generalized shortage, certain jobs will experience a shortage of qualified workers. Here are five that are expected to be hit particularly hard:
1. Registered Nurse
The nursing shortage has been fairly well-publicized. According to a report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human services, there was a shortage of 110,000 RNs in 2000, or about 6 percent of the national demand. The shortage is expected to grow to 29 percent by 2020.
What's causing this dramatic shortage? For one thing, the report states there will be an 18 percent increase in the population by 2012. Plus, the aging of the baby boomers will result in a larger proportion of elderly people. To make matters worse, after 2011 the number of nurses leaving the profession is expected to exceed the number entering it.
Nursing salaries are increasing to help boost interest. The starting salary for registered nurses was nearly $39,000 in an April 2005 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. According to the BLS, median annual salaries were $53,640 in November 2004.
2. Machinist
In Deloitte's 2005 Skills Gap Report, 90 percent of respondents indicated a moderate to severe shortage of qualified skills production employees like machinists, who use machine tools, such as lathes, machining centers and milling machines to produce precision metal parts.
Machinists are becoming ever-more productive, but job opportunities for machinists are expected to be excellent, according to the BLS. These days, many young people are choosing to attend college or are shying away from production occupations. Thus, there are not enough new machinists to fill newly created jobs or replace experienced machinists who leave the occupation or retire.
According to the Princeton Review, the average starting salary for a machinist is $22,500. The median salary for machinists is just over $34,000, according to the BLS.
3. Librarian
Studies have shown that librarians are expected to exit the profession en masse in coming years. The American Library Association Web site quotes statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau indicating that more than one-quarter of all librarians will reach the age of 65 by 2009. A study published in the Library Journal found that 40 percent of library directors would retire by that same year.
In addition to the librarians expected to retire within the next decade, interest in the profession is waning among younger workers, according to the BLS. The situation is particularly dire for colleges and universities, which report the greatest difficulty in hiring librarians due to lower pay.
Graduates of library programs in 2004 reported an average starting salary of more than $39,000, an increase of nearly 3 percent over the previous year. The median salary for librarians is nearly $47,000, according to the BLS.
4. Truck Driver
Getting those eBay packages delivered might take longer by 2014. A report prepared for the American Trucking Associations by Global Insight, Inc. warns there is already a shortage of about 20,000 long-haul heavy-duty truck drivers. By 2014, the deficit is expected to reach 111,000.
The report blames slipping wages for the shortage. Trucking wages fell sharply with the onset of the recession in 2000 and have yet to recover. According to the BLS, the median salary for heavy or tractor-trailer truck drivers is $33,870.
5. Pharmacist
What, no refills? Pharmacists should have no trouble finding a job in coming years. A recent report from the Pharmacy Manpower Project predicted there will be a shortage of 157,000 pharmacists by 2020. Already, the American Hospital Association reports a 7.4 percent vacancy rate for pharmacists.
The shortage can be partially attributed to the aging population and the fact that more drugs are being manufactured and advertised to the public. In fact, the number of prescriptions has increased from 2 billion to 3.2 billion in the last 10 years. That problem is expected to worsen with the new Medicare prescription drug program that began Jan. 1, pharmacy officials told CNN in November.
To help cope, universities are opening new pharmacy programs and expanding existing ones. The high pay currently offered by pharmacist employers can't hurt, either. The BLS reports the median salary for pharmacists is over $87,000.
Laura Morsch is a writer for CareerBuilder.com. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues.
That should be illegal.
Jarold Nadler's proctologist.
And for the 5th year in a row, the Most unpoopular job in America, "Crack Whore"!
Izzy Dunne I warned you didn't I? Now see what Angus has done.
I was about to have breakfast too. I can forget about that now.
I hope that you have a great career in nursing. My friends who did it liked it, but they worked their tails off. I stood back and watched their dedication in disbelief. Takes a real work ethic.
My sister is an R.N. and makes more than that too.
Bingo!, you took the words right out of my mouth. A very highly skilled job, that doesnt pay squat.
I live in the South and that is about what they are paying. My sister-in-law lives in Michigan. She works part-time and makes $36 per hour. You know the nurse anaethetists are making $100,000 a year. But if people into nursing just because of money, they are missing the boat. It's really hard work.
Well, this is good news! I wouldn't want to be training for an unpopular profession. "Follow the crowd" that's what my old man always told me. That correspondence course on buggy whip making looks like it may pay off in spades!
Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
OH my that one really hurt. Felt a sharp stabbing pain in my gut when I read that one.
I always thought RN's make pretty good money.
After you factor in the hours and hazards, I think they deserve a lot more.
;->
I don't think we'll have a problem finding people to do jobs 2 through 5. It's just a matter of the market finding the right wage.
I doubt we'll have any long-term problem with truck drivers. The truck drivers I know seem to enjoy the work reasonably well. The problems are in the wages and the hours, and those things can be adjusted in the marketplace. We'll always have a supply of men with independent streaks who are happy to spend their days on the open road, if they can make a decent living doing so.
The problem with nursing is that so much of the job is in the public sector and unionized, so wages and working conditions adjust very slowly. Unions tend to do a terrible job of addressing working conditions, because they seek solutions that could be applied to everyone.
For example, a good nurse might propose that certain nurses be allowed to use their judgment in how often they check in on patients. A good nurse might know, for example, that Old Mr. Jones has to be checked on every fifteen minutes whereas young Ms. Smith is going to be okay with checks at lesser freqency. But the union would never agree to a policy where good nurses have different rules than bad nurses, and the hospital is never going to agree to a policy that gives such discretion to the worst nurse in the hospital. The upshot is all nurses have to abide by rules that are only appropriate for the very worst nurse in the hospital.
The union may get an agreement for regular 15-minute breaks or something, but such a move hardly addresses the real issues in nursing.
What, no one has posted the photo of the deodorant testers sniffing rows of underarms yet?
:)
I have people in my classes that are moving from LPN to RN because of the money and those who got into nursing simply for the money.
Some have made it through, some have already dropped out a few have flunked out.
For some people, they want the money to work as hard as a nurse does. I didn't look at salaries when I decided to go into forensic nursing. It wasn't until classes started and hospitals came around recruting that I even looked at money. Even if it paid $5/hr I'd still go into the field.
But lucrative. I'm a Computer Guy, and I liken our business to "Muck Jumping", i.e. jumping into cesspools. We have our careers because it is just too distasteful, confusing, and difficult for most people to jump into "driver hell" to make their computers work. And we provide a convenient outlet to blame when anything goes wrong.
It all depends on how you market it. Think "Custom leathercrafting for the sexually adventuresome".
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