Where The Jobs Will Be this Decade
Notice that 6 of the top 7 jobs are still low paying jobs. The job situation is still horrible around the area where I live. What about where you are?
Top 10 List
Dixie Sommers, assistant commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, recites a list of the 10 occupations that the BLS expects will provide the greatest number of new jobs over the next decade. These include:
1. Registered nurses
2. Home health aides
3. Customer service representatives
4. Food preparation and serving workers
5. Personal and home care aides
6. Retail salespersons
7. Office clerks
8. Accountants
9. Nursing aides, orderlies and attendants
10. Postsecondary teachers
Six of the top seven fastest-growing occupations are low-skill, low-wage jobs.
Katz says the challenge is to move those jobs up the skills ladder. There’s no reason, he says, that home health care workers couldn’t be better educated to provide patients with greater value and, as a result, command higher wages to improve their own living standards.
“So [by] professionalizing those types of jobs, we could have a very optimistic vision of an economy,” Katz says.
How that might square the goal of spending less on health care isn’t clear.
Katz argues it wouldn’t necessarily require spending more on education, but rather changing what’s taught to focus more on different skills like problem solving, interpersonal relations and teamwork.




January 7th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Overall, it looks like the dumbing down of America will continue.
Sage Reply:
January 7th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Doesn’t it just.
I take a bit of exception to the idea that the top 6 are just unskilled jobs. I guess that depends on how well someone does a job and how much we value people skills.
January 7th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
The training for 2,5 & 9 is 12 weeks usually as they are working
RN’s could have a 2 yr or 4 yr degree. The 4yrs make good money.
January 8th, 2010 at 8:11 am
Where I am, North Tx, DFW area, we seemed to have bypassed the WORST of the recession/depression. I heard on national news many times that Tx was still going strong while manyother states were in DIRE straights. Also it seems of late the talk is that things are improving here before they are improving in other states.So, that would seem great, right? But in my husband’s field, construction, almost all of his friends and former colleagues are out of work, have closed their doors, filed bankruptcy and are working at any thing they can find. We are so blessed he still has work, but the job he has has had and still does have some VERY sketchy times. We feel like he could lose the job any day. So, I say if TX is the best place for work in the country,,,, that’s a pretty scary thought. Because whatever the media says, trust me, it is BAD. Folks who were self sufficient in thriving construction jobs a few years ago are closing their doors and working in their garage at home or doubling up with 1 or 2 other shops to share rent and help each other.
Side note… I work at home mostly now, but for years have worked as a MAID( yes I know,, good money in housekeeping, believe it) and my customers are LOADED. Well my mainstay job has ended in the last few months because the husband of the household lost HIS JOB at Cisco :O… That was totally unexpected.
Really my at home job has been marginally thriving. Otherwise we would have SUNK months ago.
SO that is how things are where I am
January 8th, 2010 at 9:10 am
This is all just mind boggling. All I want to say is tied up in a knot right now. I am just going to have to work through this knotting knot in my throat before I can make any enlightened comment. (Ali, back in the l960s when Cubans first started coming to this country–and there was so much opportunity to find jobs and clim the proverbial rags-to-riches-ladder–there were some Cubans (who’d been Administrators, Accountants, etc. in Cuba) but who found jobs CLEANING OFFICES, restaurants, and homes. Some of them went on to find a way to work in the same professions that they had in Cuba. Others chose to open a cleaning business of their own… they found it quite profitable.
January 8th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Well housecleaning, although an ‘undesirable’ job pays about 15 to 20 an hour. That is not for a service or at a hotel or whatnot. Just an individual home you go in and do your job and leave. That’s dang good money !!!!!! In fact I have counseled many of the younger generation to go get some houses to clean. Their response…. ”i dont wanna be a maid!!” So they end up flipping burgers for 6.50 an hour and whine about it.
Also a housekeeping job keeps you modestly in shape. I could stand to lose a few pounds, BUT I have never been too overweight and I don’t necessarily exercise or eat right
Sage Reply:
January 8th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
If my back would allow me to do that I probably would. As you said, it pays well.
AliSilver Reply:
January 9th, 2010 at 9:12 am
@Sage, It does pay well and once you get a couple of secure customers, they are totally DEPENDANT on you . I have branched it out to doing errands for them as well and other chores. I’ve babysat their kids, house sat their pets while they’re on vacation…etc etc. A trustworthy personal assistant is invaluable to folks with money !
January 8th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Who said housecleaning is an undesirable job?
January 9th, 2010 at 9:10 am
Well I’m only gathering its undesirable by how many people snub their nose at it. I had a friend out of work for a year. She’s an office manager, single mom. I kept suggesting cleaning houses to her and she was like ‘eh,,, if i dont find somehting in a month i will’ .. Next month same thing. She finally did get her job and it’s going well, but in the mean time she was nearly starving and would NOT go clean a house. So her ‘good ‘ job now is making 11.50 or close to that. For me, I have flexible hours and charge more for heavier duty work, like cleaning attics or garages, 30 an hour ! But , like I said I don’t hardly do it anymore. But when you can go do a one day job for 150 cash, WHY NOT? None of my friends made as much as me. That was countered by me working less hours. Which was great because I got the kids off to school and home before the bus again. But I could work 2 or 2 1/2 days a week and make what they made in a week. Still they sorta look down their nose at my work ! ANDDDDDDDDDD Guess how many have hired me to clean their house ! All of them at one time or another have had me clean their house ! FUNNY!
January 10th, 2010 at 8:31 am
Good for you AliSilver! (At one point in our lives when we needed to supplement our income, a friend of my husband’s, who had a cleaning business cleaning a restaurant, needed some back up help, and he helped her out for a couple of months. Beause he would have to get up at 2 or 3 in the morning, go clean the restaurant, and then come back home, shower, and go to his regular work, I would go with him and clean the tables, floors and counters while he cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms. … ) I am not one of those who lives to clean my house (like my cousin who can’t wait till you are done drinking your glass of water, or your cup of coffee to go and wash it out, dry it, and put it back in the cupboard) but I have always admired the people who do cleaning, and I have always admired that they are able to set their own hours and work at their own pace. So, again: thumbs up to you Ali Silver, or as my grandchild would say: “Hoorrrayyy!!!”
January 10th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Tks Skya, But not so fast……. You know the ‘cobblers children have no shoes’? Well the house where I live is NOT CLEAN,,, lol,,, nor will it ever be,,, God Willing ! Cleaning up after others sometimes makes me think I’d rather relax or talk to a friend or play with my dog than worry if the floors are clean. So my personal philosophy at home is My clothes are clean that my family wears,,, the dishes are clean that we eat off of ! ALWAYS. I never have laundry or dishes piled up. Everything else is negotiable……. floors, dust, clutter, tubs etc.
skyagunsta Reply:
January 10th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
@AliSilver, Neat! I like the negotiation you make … O:-)
Sage Reply:
January 10th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
A little bit of dust, clutter and dirt never hurt anyone, did it? I admit to being the world’s worst about dusting. I get it from my mom. She’d rather you shoot her than make her dust.