Where The Jobs Are
You most likely know this, but here’s a reminder:
The one part of the economy that has remained strong during the Great Recession is health care.
Health care employment has actually gone up, at the same time that employment in general is headed toward the toilet. What’s more, given that the fact that each baby boomer gets a little older every day, this trend is likely to continue.
Check out this item, with revealing graphs, from yesterday’s NYT. And read that list twice: “registered nurses, personal and home care aides, home health aides, nursing aides, orderlies and attendants, medical assistants, licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses, pharmacy technicians, and physicians and surgeons.”
Keep in mind that not all health care jobs involve working with patients, or even require a medical degree. If you are an IT whiz, for example, you may be able to transfer your skills to the burgeoning eletronic medical records industry. Of course, there’s also health administration (huge potential there); think marketing, fundraising, billing, government relations, and HR.
Don’t forget veterinary medicine! Or dentistry, or mental health, or occupational health.
Here’s a good starter Q&A on jobs in the health care industry. Also this Ten Step Guide to a Career in Health Care from Monster (requires a lot of clicking, but it’s informative).
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Healthcare is a great field to get into however, beware if we get socialized medicine. those high salaries and perks will be gone immediatly.
I would say that health care jobs, on the whole, would be fairly recession-proof since people do still get sick. Though, if uninsured, they may not go in unless absolutely necessary — by that point, they they will *really* need them.
That was an excellent point that the healthcare industry needs a wide range of talent and skills to run: IT, administration etc.