Fastest-Growing College-Level Occupations, 2010-20

Last week, I blogged about the fastest-growing industries, according to the latest round of employment projections published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, applying to the years 2010 through 2020.  If you're looking for college-level occupations with lots of job opportunities, here is some information you will find helpful. Next week I'll feature a similar table with occupations that don't require college.

Fastest-Growing College-Level Occupations 2010-20
Occ title	Empl 2010	Growth	Total annual job  open-ings	Edu- cation	Expe- rience	Train- ing
Biomedical Engineers	15,700	61.7%	1,310	Bachelor's degree	None	None
Veterinary Technologists and Technicians	80,200	52.0%	5,570	Associate degree	None	None
Physical Therapist Assistants	67,400	45.7%	4,120	Associate degree	None	None
Meeting, Convention, and Event Planners	71,600	43.7%	4,500	Bachelor's degree	Less than 1 year	None
Diagnostic Medical Sonographers	53,700	43.5%	3,170	Associate degree	None	None
Occupational Therapy Assistants	28,500	43.3%	1,680	Associate degree	None	None
Interpreters and Translators	58,400	42.2%	4,030	Bachelor's degree	None	Long-term on-the-job training
Marriage and Family Therapists	36,000	41.2%	2,260	Master's degree	None	Internship/ residency
Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists	282,700	41.2%	19,180	Bachelor's degree	None	None
Physical Therapists	198,600	39.0%	10,060	Doctoral or professional degree	None	None
Dental Hygienists	181,800	37.7%	10,490	Associate degree	None	None
Audiologists	13,000	36.8%	560	Doctoral or professional degree	None	None
Health Educators	63,400	36.5%	3,690	Bachelor's degree	None	None
Cost Estimators	185,400	36.4%	10,300	Bachelor's degree	None	None
Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists	100,000	36.4%	4,260	Doctoral or professional degree	None	None
Mental Health Counselors	120,300	36.3%	6,940	Master's degree	None	Internship/ residency
Veterinarians	61,400	35.9%	3,420	Doctoral or professional degree	None	None
Geographers	1,600	35.4%	130	Bachelor's degree	None	None
Industrial-Organizational Psychologists	2,200	34.9%	150	Master's degree	None	Internship/ residency
Occupational Therapists	108,800	33.5%	5,710	Master's degree	None	None
Healthcare Social Workers	152,700	33.5%	8,740	Master's degree	None	None
Optometrists	34,200	33.1%	2,340	Doctoral or professional degree	None	None
Software Developers, Systems Software	392,300	32.4%	16,800	Bachelor's degree	None	None
Personal Financial Advisors	206,800	32.1%	9,020	Bachelor's degree	None	None
Medical Equipment Repairers	37,900	31.5%	2,230	Associate degree	None	Moderate-term on-the-job training
Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers	126,100	31.3%	6,940	Bachelor's degree	None	None
Biochemists and Biophysicists	25,100	30.8%	1,340	Doctoral or professional degree	None	None
Database Administrators	110,800	30.6%	5,270	Bachelor's degree	1 to 5 years	None
Athletic Trainers	18,200	30.0%	1,190	Bachelor's degree	None	None

Fastest-Growing Industries, 2010-20

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published the latest round of employment projections, applying to the years 2010 through 2020. If you're looking for fields with lots of job opportunities, here is some information you will find helpful. This blog covers industries. My next blog will cover occupations.

  

Fastest-Growing Industries 2010-20
INDUSTRY TITLE	EMPL2010	EMPL2020	PCTCHG	EMPCHG
Social assistance	2,624,300	3,906,100	48.8%	1,281,800
Ambulatory health care services	5,975,900	8,633,200	44.5%	2,657,300
Wholesale electronic markets and agents and brokers	805,100	1,147,200	42.5%	342,100
Specialty trade contractors	3,465,400	4,695,200	35.5%	1,229,800
Lessors of nonfinancial intangible assets (except copyrighted works)	25,200	33,400	32.5%	8,200
Heavy and civil engineering construction	828,600	1,086,400	31.1%	257,800
Health and personal care stores	978,800	1,278,400	30.6%	299,600
Professional, scientific, and technical services	7,423,900	9,551,500	28.7%	2,127,600
Construction of buildings	1,231,600	1,583,500	28.6%	351,900
Funds, trusts, and other financial vehicles	86,900	110,600	27.3%	23,700
Couriers and messengers	527,100	669,300	27.0%	142,200
Scenic and sightseeing transportation	27,300	34,500	26.4%	7,200
Nursing and residential care facilities	3,129,000	3,951,000	26.3%	822,000
Warehousing and storage	628,300	793,600	26.3%	165,300
Furniture and home furnishings stores	436,400	550,200	26.1%	113,800
Water transportation	62,800	78,700	25.3%	15,900
Securities, commodity contracts, and other financial investments	800,900	1,002,300	25.1%	201,400

For One of the Best Jobs, Get a Good Education

One message that you will hear again and again from people who provide career information is that the importance of higher education has grown over the past several years. Today I’d like to offer one more piece of evidence supporting this argument.

This month, the sixth edition of Best Jobs for the 21st Century has been released by JIST Publishing. I have been involved in updating this book since the third edition, which came out in 2002.

I thought it would be interesting to see how educational requirements have changed, over 10 years and three editions, for the mix of occupations included in this book. You should understand that in all the editions of this book, occupations were not selected to represent a cross-section of the levels of required education and training. Instead, the occupations were selected (from a pool of those for which data was available) entirely on the basis of their economic rewards--specifically, their combined rankings on average earnings, projected growth, and projected annual job openings.

As it happens, most of the occupations with the very best economic rewards also require a high level of skill and therefore many years of education. However, Best Jobs for the 21st Century has always included several hundred occupations--not just the very best jobs, but also the good jobs. As a result, the book has always included many occupations that require only on-the-job training, work experience, or very short educational programs for entry.

But has the mix of entry requirements changed over the years?

Here’s what I found when I compared the educational requirements of occupations in the two editions, 2002 and 2012.

Level of Education/Training	Occs. in 2002 Edition	Occs. in 2012 Edition
Short-term on-the-job training	15%	10%
Moderate-term on-the-job training	15%	10%
Long-term on-the-job training	10%	6%
Work experience in a related occupation	7%	8%
Postsecondary vocational award	8%	6%
Associate degree	7%	7%
Bachelor's degree	17%	23%
Bachelor's or higher degree, plus work experience	6%	8%
Master's degree	11%	7%
Doctoral degree	2%	11%
First professional degree	3%	3%

You can see that the overall trend is toward increased education. All three categories of on-the-job training are not as well represented in 2012 as they were in 2002.

The lesson to take away should be clear: Earnings and job opportunity are declining in occupations that don’t require a college education. Higher education is the entry ticket to highly rewarding jobs.

Have a Less Stressful Year

Today, my colleague Selena Dehne tweeted about an article on the AOL website called “10 Most Stressful Jobs of 2012.” Having written 150 Best Low-Stress Jobs, I was interested in what high-stress jobs would appear on the list.

The researchers who compiled the list say they looked at 11 different factors that invoke stress. Just for a comparison, I looked at the jobs for which the O*NET database gives “Stress Tolerance” the highest importance rating. Surprisingly, there was zero overlap between O*NET’s top 10 and the top 10 on the AOL website.

In fairness, I should point out that the most stressful job listed on the AOL website, Enlisted Military Soldier, is not rated for stress by O*NET. However, many of the other job titles, such as Firefighter (#2) and Airline Pilot (#3) are rated by O*NET but given considerably lower scores. In fact, Forest Firefighters comes in at number 170 in the O*NET ratings and Municipal Firefighters at 181. Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers comes in at 50. On the other hand, Police, Fire, and Ambulance Dispatchers comes in at third place among the O*NET ratings.

In case you’re curious, here are the top 10 from O*NET:

1. Psychiatric Aides
2. Anesthesiologists
3. Police, Fire, and Ambulance Dispatchers
4. Psychiatric Technicians
5. Telephone Operators
6. Dancers
7. Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs
8. Obstetricians and Gynecologists
9. Air Traffic Controllers
10. Surgeons

If your job is stressful, maybe one of your New Year’s resolutions should be to lower the level of stress. You’ll be a better worker and a healthier person if you follow through on this idea. Here are some suggestions:

• Identify what’s stressing you and set priorities: You probably can’t defuse every stressful aspect of your work—unless you quit, which creates new stresses. So focus on the most severe stressors that you have the greatest likelihood of being able to change. Avoid perfectionism, which is a self-imposed form of stress; accept the fact that you make mistakes and view them as opportunities for learning. Be realistic about the goals you set for yourself.
• Speak up: Don’t suffer in silence. (One survey found that 60 percent of workers do.) Often, your boss or co-workers can make adjustments to your work situation that may reduce or eliminate stressors. The key is for you to avoid whining and make the case that reducing the stress will increase your productivity. Ask for the resources you need and show appreciation for the support you get. If you’re self-employed, let your family know what’s causing stress and enlist their help in reducing it or in making leisure time more rewarding.
• Put up a fence between work and the rest of your life: Avoid letting a cell phone or e-mail chain you to the workplace. Working partly at home can remove you from some office pressures, but it can also blur the line between work and free time. Cultivate friendships with people who aren’t co-workers.
• Get organized: Sticking tightly (but not obsessively) to a schedule can help you separate work from leisure. It can prevent you from procrastinating and help you limit the amount of time you let yourself think about stressors. Deal with them when they’re scheduled, and then put them out of your thoughts. You can achieve a similar effect by reducing office clutter. Having dozens of papers lying around the office is like having dozens of voices nagging you to get tasks done and also makes it hard for you to find what you need. If you don’t have a job description, ask your boss for one. It will help you set boundaries on what is expected of you.
• Exercise regularly: Leave time in your busy schedule for a workout of some kind. You may feel that stress leaves you too tired to exercise, but most people who take up a regular schedule of exercise finds that it invigorates them. It also drains away stress-induced hormones and contributes to your long-term health.
• Eat sensibly and get enough sleep: Junk food and sleep deprivation can compound stress-related health problems. For example, caffeine and high-carbohydrate foods can increase the rush in blood sugar that stress produces.
• Practice relaxation: Meditation techniques—even something as simple as slow, rhythmic breathing in a quiet setting—can help you decompress. Some people get similar benefits from extended prayer or a midday nap. Many people believe that bringing a pet to work is helpful (if the employer allows it).
• Build a social life: Many people find the most rewarding time of the week is the time they spend with family and friends. Try to maximize these times. Social contacts distract you from workplace pressures and can provide support when you’re feeling blue. Meet like-minded people through volunteer work, a night class, a book club, a faith community, or a sports league.
• Maintain a sense of humor: Try to find the humor in your situation. You can’t be afraid of something while you’re laughing at it. If you can’t find any humor in your workplace, find it in your leisure time.