Careers: The Ten Fastest Growing Fields?
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I am not a big fan of top ten lists but I decided to take a look at the list compiled by Cecilia Capuzzi Simon in a recent article that appeared in the April 13, 2011 New Times Education supplement. Entitled “Top Ten List: Where the Jobs Are.” The article was extremely well written and based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ list of the fastest-growing occupations.
The Bureau gleefully announced that it expects there to more than a million new jobs by 2018, and a “worker pool that may not be trained to fill them.” While this may seemingly appear to be great news—given the almost 10 percent unemployment rate that has been plaguing the US for the past three years—I was puzzled by appearance of biomedical engineering (#1), medical scientists (#6) and biochemists and biophysicists (#9) on the lists mainly because I know that persons who are trained in these fields are having extremely difficult times finding jobs in the current economy. That said, with most life science R&D being shipped over seas or outsourced, it hard to see that any of these jobs will be in great demand in the US over the next seven years. Maybe the bureau knows something that I don’t? Or maybe, it is the US government’s way of gently nudging people into careers that they anticipate will be highly valued in the future? Whatever the reason, it is going to be tough to convince college freshman to major in these fields if the current job market for these professions is currently so bleak.
What is even more puzzling then the ranking of these three career choices list is the actually numbers of new jobs that are anticipated to be created. The total number of new jobs expected in these fields by 2018 is roughly 65,000 (biomedical engineers-12,000; medical scientists-44,000; and biochemists and biophysicists-9,000). Compare this with the number of jobs anticipated by 2018 for network systems and data communication analysts (156,000), home health aide (461,000), personal and home care aide (376,000) or physician assistants (29,000) and you will get a better idea about the urgency for biomedical engineers and other life scientists.
There is no question that life scientists will command higher salaries and wages than home health aids or possibly a physician’s assistant but life sciences jobs typically require a minimum of a MS or PhD degree. Moreover, the economic theory of supply and demand suggests that it will be much easier for healthcare informaticists or home healthcare aides to find a job as compared with a biomedical engineer or PhD biochemist—even by 2018. In other words, don’t expect the US job market for life scientists to get better any time soon.
While it is unfortunate that the US is beginning to seriously lag behind much smaller countries in science, math and engineering preparedness, the current demand for these types of jobs is waning and undergraduate college students—who lived through the recent financial meltdown—will likely (and rightly) choose to pursue careers where the likelihood of future employment is greatest. Unfortunately, the life sciences isn’t one of them.
Until next time...
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!
Each year the World Bank compiles a report that assesses the world’s friendliest business climates for small companies. The top three companies on this year’s list, Singapore, New Zealand and the US have been there four years in a row. The real shocker this year was that several previously lagging nations moved up on the list, mostly because of business-friendly reforms. This year’s most improved nation is Azerbaijan, which moved up 64 spots to a overall ranking of 33rd because it reduced the time required to start a new business from 122 to 16 days, reforming its civil code and creating an online tax filing system.