Employment Outlook in the United States
Job Market Outlook November 21, 2012From a historical perspective, we’ve seen this country evolve through three distinct eras. First, it was the agricultural period when we moved westward. Next, with the advent of manufacturing, we saw large industrial giants in oil, railroads and automobiles. Finally, the newest period will be technology. What makes this fascinating is it coincides with a five hundred years cycle in communication. In 1440, Gutenberg invented the printing press and broke the monopoly of the monasteries for controlling the written word. Fast forward, we now have computers that are considered the modern day printing press, but on a global scale along with ferocious speed. These changes have been sudden and unexpected that it is taking the job market by storm. The job market outlook is shifting while this article is being written. In previous eras, the job market outlook remained relatively stable and entire careers were carved out of the job market such as autos or energy.
With the speed of communication came fluidity. Today’s job market is different from even five years ago. Where the desktop led to the laptop, now we suddenly have smartphones, iPhones and tablets. These innovations in the job market have led to the development of literally thousands of new businesses. These new businesses are, in turn, changing the job market outlook. Take the apps business as an example, there are hundreds of thousands of apps for new smart gadgets.
The computer has changed the job market outlook in other fundamental ways and made it more specialized. This means, new graduates entering the job market must have some basic understanding of technology and know how to navigate through the new job market. Here, is one example; traditionally, an applicant would submit a resume and some recruiters will schedule an interview. Now with new ways of communication such as networking, texting and using social media, nearly eighty percent of jobs are found through personal referral and some positions are not published. It is true, the job market outlook has changed since the market crash in 2008 with fewer jobs available. However, added to this are alternative ways in searching for employment.
The job market has not changed for those who works in the marketing field that covers advertising, promotion, public relations, and several other areas. A marketing buzz word is “branding” and companies take different approaches to build brand awareness around their products/services via online and offline. Online marketing would include email, search, social, and display compared to offline marketing that includes television, print media, and radio. Now days there are many tools that help promote a company’s products and services, so determining the best bang for your buck may be a little difficult. Marketing experts use different marketing tactics to analyze the effectiveness of tools to just their marketing spend. The complexity of marketing specialist job makes them one of the highest paid profession with a median annual income of $127,870. The Bureau of Labor Statistics stated, the marketing job market looks strong with fourteen percent new openings from 2010 to 2020.
Now looking at the teacher’s job market and it looks bright, but they still face some challenges with the public school system. If we examine the teacher’s market, the outlook will be different for various teaching areas. For instance, math and science will see a short fall of 280,000 positions by 2015, but exceedingly favorable job market outlook for English teachers, which are expected from the increased number of children who enter school that are not fluent in english. Presently, the numbers are nineteen percent and will increase to forty percent by 2030. Next, the job market for special education teacher are steadily increasing. Lastly, the computer has created a need for more instructors in this area. Computer technology is a growing segment of the curriculum.
