Many are asking these days: who is hiring now? Where can I get a job? 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!
Copyright © 2009 The Digerati Life. All Rights Reserved.
{ 29 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…
The easiest way to check out the job boards is to use a specialized search engine for jobs like Indeed.com. You can search millions of positions from thousands of job boards, newspaper classifieds, associations and blogs – all in a single search. You can also save your searches by email alert or RSS feed to get the very latest jobs matching your queries.
Paul
CEO, Indeed
http://www.indeed.com – one search. all jobs.
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!
I am a very hard worker and i like to be around people. I am 17 years old and i go to school at a student support center.
Tough times are still here. The best thing anyone can do is to keep pushing ahead. This post has some excellent resources. People still need to be prepared for when the opportunity happens. This means having a complete resume, interview tips, a career assessment, and more. Do visit my site if you are looking for help in these areas.
Thanks for the great post.
Well people are stuck up in places when it comes to better feeding their family. It’s not the next hot job when you are married and end up with 4 kids which you are obligated to feed. On top of that the economy isn’t having it easy on us since the prices are so increased on practically everything. The unemployment rate is so ridiculous that it leaves you thinking about your chances on whether you can secure a job or not. Above all, people are no longer working for their satisfaction. Now it’s more of get along and pass by…. People have to make a living, gone are those days in the 80s where you could just lounge about and be carefree.
Are employers looking in the right areas for employees? The shift from looking for educated people to experienced people has left everyone of us who graduated from college last year, and many years to come, frustrated, in enormous debt, and wondering what they could have done in the last four years that would have actually mattered. In the end, I know that I’ll have my degree as an asset to who I am, but it doesn’t matter to anyone except my parents (who are not hiring). When I see my college grad neighbor who got a job just outside of hicksville working as a co-manager at a shoe store, and her other manager is a “barely high school grad” who has casually been making money and experience instead of spending ungodly amounts of money in a broken education system, it saddens me.
I have lost all hope in getting a “career” working at a cash register at K-mart, because they just send me to their online application (which all of them are the same) so I can plan on not getting a response. I live in Bloomington, IN where I’ve applied for just about every job, and I have received 2 interviews, about 10 “no’s” and maybe 100 without response. I applied at Panera Bread, where I got to go to three separate interviews before not getting a call. The first, I was the only one that showed up. The second, she forgot the standard questionnaire that corporate tells her to use. The third she told me she would call me the next day to schedule an interview with the person who actually does the hiring. You tell me why large companies are doing poorly. Shame on them for even calling it a career anyway. It’s not. So stop putting that link at the bottom of your website. Am I supposed to say to the janitorial company that’s interviewing me that using Windex is a secret passion of mine that gives me the giggles every time I spray? They have to know that everyone just needs a job, and will take what they can get.
Today, I make my “living” off craigslist and my depleting graduation money; that was supposed to help me get started. Getting started is probably going to take another four years. Good thing I went to college. I have enough time on my hands to blog on this website. Its noon and I’ve already checked out all the new posts on monster, snagajob (hoax), craigslist (usually a hoax), and job.com (definitely crap).
This first year out of college I’ve learned that everything is who you know, and real life human communication. So go out there, and talk to people. Go out and fill in applications in person, NEVER ONLINE. Call in a few days to see if there was movement on your application. Learn your previous employer’s numbers, because you’re going to fill them out a lot. As well as the address of your high school. But of course, all this advice must be worth s*** since I am still unemployed.
I suggest that you take help from your LOCAL online CLASSIFIEDS and see the difference in response time — how quick you get a response. good luck.
I have been a virtual call center agent for the past 4 years and during the recession i was actually getting more job offers. the virtual call center industry is being expected to grow 10 fold over the next 10 years as more and more companies cut costs and move their staff to home offices. I know, answering customer service calls is not a sexy job, but I have been doing this job while going to school. My work schedule is flexible and I make more money working at home as a call center agent, than if i worked at Gap. Check it out.
Here is a list of websites that offer virtual call center jobs:
callcenteraddict.com
liveops.com
arise.com
Apple.com
uhaul.com
Attack the situation with a purpose. Don’t take advice from people in worse situations than you (you do it more than you think), and evaluate those successful and rich people you know who didnt inherit a trust fund or wealth, and not the turn key kids who work for daddy. Those self made people are the ones who know how this country works. The trust fund kids talk big but are all slaves to their coke and prescriptions med addictions, the dropout losers blame everyone else while they waste all their $$ at dive bars anyway, and attractive women think they know how to get a job & r successful when in reality their manager/boss hired them to get in their pants. and most of the chumps on this blog and many others r moaning about no money, no job, no apartment in the big city, no fancy mocha latte dates, but are still surfing on a $1200 macbook, texting away to their peeps on their $500 iphone, and wont consider the store brand for any food.
Right now it is tough to get a job in even supposedly good fields, but hopefully persistence pays off for everyone looking. The job search sites have tools that are useful other than allowing people to look for jobs.
I have been a CNA for over 22 years. The hours are long (12+ hours) on some days due to under staffing as most places will only hire the state minimum needed to run the places to cut costs. The wages where I now work are just above minimum wage due to the latest over 6% cut in pay to keep my job.Its all about the money. It doesn’t matter if you work in the nursing homes or a hospital. In my state hospitals are laying LPNs hand over fist wanting only RNs. I now work the floors with LPNs working as aides because of these layoffs. I believe they will become the new “CNAs” soon,as more and more babyboomers are needing care.With all the changes made to the health care system, I see more and more layoffs as places try to compete in a managed cost program.
b.s. im a doctor my wife a nurse. my wife with 10 years nursing experience and surgical technician, there are no jobs available. my son got his radiology tech degree 2 yrs ago. Again no jobs available. it appears medicine is no longer recession proof especially with a president in office willing to fine business/hospitals for not providing health insurance on every individual apparently making these organization anxious about overhiring and paying fines.
Lots of interesting information here and sadly, a lot of unhappy people. I can suggest one thing, and that is try to find something to do online. You may be surprised at what you will find including what I talk about on my site at MikeGervis.com.
I’m 50 years old and I get SSI & SSA. I looking for work.
Will they hire a 50 year old person? Hmmm!
I’m looking for a job and I can do pretty much everything!
Nowadays, there are lots of websites you can use if you are searching for a job online. For instance, you can use different freelancing sites to land clients and get a job (if you are a freelancer). You can also look for jobs on social networking sites like Twitter, which is one of the faster growing online communities. One of the most common mistakes of employees when looking for a job is that they just stay focused on one job search site. You should try to conduct your search through various channels.
This also goes for employers who are hiring. If you are looking to hire, here’s an interesting article about how focusing just on job sites such as Monster.com could be a mistake for your business (that is, you should consider other ways to promote your jobs).
I believe online work at home opportunities are the way forward in the current employment climate and everyone really should include this in their toolbox. It could be either part-time or full-time – whatever suits your situation – and if you’ve always been employed it certainly will broaden your outlook to take on self employed freelance work. There are opportunities in new and emerging niches for motivated people willing to work at home online.