Career Guide 2005
A brightening labor market could make this the time to look for a new job
Turasz, 40, has a bachelor's degree in education and chose Primrose and a salary under $30,000 to be near her 2-year-old daughter, who will go to the school. But she could have found better pay in the local public system. Manatee County, just east of Sarasota, has 10 new schools under construction and adds about 150 new teachers a year, with salaries from $32,000 to $64,000. Filling all those spots is a challenge, says Superintendent Roger Dearing, especially science, math, and special education teachers, and it's only going to get worse, with some 40 percent of Florida's teachers within 10 years of retirement. It's a problem for the nation, too: An estimated 2 million additional teachers will be needed over the next decade because of swelling enrollment, turnover, and retirement.
Indeed, three of the 30 fastest-growing jobs are in teaching, according to the BLS. Three are related to the environment, seven are computer related, and a whopping 15 are in healthcare. The other rapidly growing trades are social-and human-services assistants and fitness and aerobics instructors.
Historically, such service jobs paid less on average than those in manufacturing. So the changing mix of new jobs has contributed to meager wage gains over the past year--just 2.2 percent for nonsupervisory workers. But monthly payroll increases of 250,000 to 300,000 through June should change that, says Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics: "As the labor market picks up over the next few months, wages will start to rise faster." Faced with slowing productivity and a shrinking pool of available workers, businesses will have to work harder to attract and keep the human resources they need.
It's already happening, says Allison Hemming, president of the Hired Guns, a New York recruiting agency. "We're seeing a shift from a buyer's market to a seller's market," she says, and workers are suddenly realizing they can demand a little bit more--certainly in terms of salary and benefits, but also in asking for flex time and telecommuting.
On your own. Still, few workers can expect to regain the job security and steady upward march that firms like IBM were once famous for. "Your career is your responsibility; you're no longer going to have a company plan it out for you," says Hemming. "Those days are over."
She tells her clients to consider the freelance-to-full-time scenario. More and more companies want to try out an employee before committing, so workers offered a job on such a trial basis should look at it as an opportunity, not an insult. At this point in the economic cycle, companies are looking for experts, says Hemming, "so don't market yourself as a jack of all trades because you'll come across as a master of nothing." Figure out what expertise the job you want calls for, and make the case that you have it. If you don't, consider getting it. "Master's [degrees] and certificate programs are great," she adds.
Education and training pay, says MIT's Levy. The withering of the manufacturing sector has only widened the wage gap between those with a high school diploma and those with a college degree, he says, and recent data suggesting that the gap has stopped growing probably have more to do with the tech sector shakeout than anything else. "The long-term prognosis is that education is still going to be the key," says Levy.
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