Five Unpopular Jobs You Should Have

Five Unpopular Jobs You Should Have
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 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.

Yay!!!

I got 79% in Pharmacology. I'm not superman. I'm just like you.

I found my circle...

Before I go to bed, let me share this realization with you. In my Microbiology class, most of us, preppies, (hehe) are on our postbaccaluareate degree. In my circle, we all came from different fields like Business, Psychology, Biology and Biochemistry. For the most challenging part, I would say that the hardest adaptation would be those coming from a non-Science major pursuing a healthcare profession. You have to be flexible in learning Medical vocabularies. It's not about partnerships, Freight in--freight out, deadlock, accounting and law of diminishing returns anymore. I have to shelf these terms for now and pull them out for my MBA later. With these kind of people surrounding me, I feel challenged and of course, professional in a way. I just love school. :)

I sympathize...

When my fellow countrymen become hopeless with life's ongoing battle against poverty, sometimes, inevitably they find salvation in lottery, gameshows and the like. This morning, my sister told me that a stampede in a gameshow called Wowowee which is very popular and aired on national television in the Philippines, took the lives of 60 elderlies who have been in the waiting line for 3 days with other throngs of aspirants from different provinces in the Philippines. I feel sorry and spent the longest 5 minute silence of my life to reflect and pray for their souls. I don't blame them for testing the goodness of luck that could happen like a strike of a lightning in a second and the kind of earthly price they had to pay just to achieve it is not commensurate. Believe me, my dad even told me that they even have to travel 3,000 miles just to get to Manila with the hope of winning and be able to bring some bounty to their families. I am now wondering if their bodies were fed the best meal on their last day or whether they just died on their empty stomachs. According to my friend Philip whom I further gathered my details, somebody from the crowd shouted for bomb and that was the onset of pandemonium and fracas. My Uncle who is a doctor from Indiana was about to attend on this gameshow this morning but I didn't worry too much since VIPs have separate entrance to the show but still yet, this is one of the shows I watch in Filipino Channel and it's totally devastating how a helpful show like this, that fosters the generosity of Filipinos living abroad to the local ones, would suffer and face this kind of mass tragedy. To the families of the bereaved, you may not be able to read this, but deeply within me, I would be and more than happy to deliver you someday. So help me God.