Hot jobs-Today’s fastest-growing careers are in the technology and health-care fields

Chris Miller started at TechTeam Global Inc. as a support analyst, doing entry-level phone support a couple of months after he graduated from high school.

Kim Norris
Knight Ridder The Spokesman Review

Five years and four promotions later, Miller is a program manager who supervises more than 40 people at the Southfield, Mich.-based company that provides computer systems and applications support to clients.

In that time, he’s worked as a technician, team leader and senior team leader.

"I was more or less looking for a job while I was going to school, and it’s turned into a career, much to my surprise," said Miller, who is pursuing a bachelor’s degree while working at TechTeam.

The 23-year-old Canton, Mich., resident exemplifies the career possibilities that exist in technology — one of the hottest and best-paying industries in the United States.

One-third of the 30 jobs projected to grow the fastest this decade are in technology. Half are in human health care. The rest are in education, fitness and animal health care, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The bureau’s list of fastest-growing occupations reflects the two dominant trends in U.S. society — the emergence of technology in virtually every area of life and the aging of a huge segment of the population known as the baby boom generation.

But the U.S. Department of Labor’s list of fastest-growing jobs — based on the projected percentage increase in employment — doesn’t tell the whole story.

While experts say they expect health care and technology to show the fastest job-growth rates, they are not the only occupations that are expected to be hot.

Government, security, finance and defense will continue to experience strong demand, according to John Rossheim, a writer for Monster.com, a job Web site.

The events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the nation’s shift to a wartime economy have created many opportunities at defense contractors. Many of the jobs are technology-oriented, but not all.

Security jobs, once relatively low-profile, are perhaps among the hottest jobs in the country right now, as airports scramble to meet the federal security requirements and companies ramp up their own security measures.

Falling interest rates have sparked job opportunities in finance, particularly banking and real estate. With interest rates at their lowest levels in decades, Rossheim noted, new home sales and refinancings have created opportunities in mortgage banking.

When real estate banking is healthy, it tends to spread to related industries, such as construction.

One of science’s biggest achievements has created one of the hottest emerging fields for employment — bio-informatics, said Chris Jones, career columnist for Hot Jobs, another online job site.

"When the folks began decoding human genome in the early ’90s, they found so much info; the only way they could categorize and slice and dice it is with IT" or information-technology guys, Jones said.

"These guys typically have computer science degrees, frequently advanced, and they work with biological processes."

Their skills can be tied into not only the biosciences, but also to pharmaceuticals and a host of other areas, he said. They can earn up to $120,000 within three to five years, he said.

"That particular position ties into two big trends: computer technology and database management and the aging baby boom contingent," Jones said.

However, just because the jobs are hot, that doesn’t mean the pay is. Some of the hottest jobs — home health aide and veterinary assistant, for example — pay the lowest salaries, according to the government.

Not surprisingly, the training and education needed to land those jobs also is minimal. Neither home care aides nor veterinary assistants need a college education and both can be trained on the job.

In general, the jobs that pay the most require the most education and training. That goes for many of the technology jobs, most of which require at least some college, if not a degree, and considerable on-the-job training.

Most of the technology-related jobs identified by the government as the fastest-growing require at least an associate’s degree, with most specifying a bachelor’s degree.

TechTeam, which employs 1,400 people worldwide, recognizes the value of expanding its own talent in an industry where demand for skilled workers and turnover rate are high.

"That’s our specialty, our career-path" marking strategy, said Bill Coyro, spokesman for TechTeam. It has a turnover rate of about 18 percent, well below the industry average of 30 percent to 40 percent in the information-technology and entry-level phone-support jobs. "We try to get the smartest person we can and give them a lot of training to grow and develop."

Delicia Lewis is making her career in one of the hottest fields — health care.

Once the 31-year-old Ferndale, Mich., resident passes the state exams and becomes certified, which she anticipates will happen early this year, Lewis will be one of the most sought-after of professionals — a registered nurse.

If all goes well, her graduation present could be a 35 percent or higher bump in pay over the $20 an hour she makes now as a licensed practical nurse.

The critical shortage of professional nurses has been well documented. The shortage is expected to continue, particularly in Lewis’ field — gerontology.

Lewis didn’t dwell on the supply and demand of nurses when she committed to the profession around the time she was 6 years old and caring for her mother, who died from multiple sclerosis in 1989.

Lewis’ first job, at 17, was at the Hilton Convalescent Home in Ferndale, where she still works on a contingency basis.

"When I first started there, I made $3.35 an hour," she recalled.

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