Like a Rock: Geosciences Offer Recession-Proof Jobs
July 2, 2011 by admin
Filed under Career News and Advice
NEW YORK (MainStreet) — The world’s huge appetite for energy and global industry’s checkered record on cleaning up after itself is actually cause for good news – if you want a career. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a huge growth in geosciences jobs, so how can you make that work to your advantage?
To start, geoscience is one of the few career markets that have escaped the unemployment axe. Right now, the “official” unemployment rate is 9.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the real jobless rate, which takes into account contract workers, freelancers, part-time workers and people who have stopped looking for work (which official government statistics do not count) is around 19%, says a 2011 Gallup survey.
But not in the geosciences sector: The BLS estimates that growth rates for geosciences jobs will reach 23% in the next few years, and in addition approximately 12% of current geoscientists should retire by 2018. Once that happens, net job availability for geoscientists in the U.S. should rise by 35% in 2018.
That’s one big reason why earth science is commanding attention among companies and from high school and college students looking for a genuine recession-proof industry.
But it goes way beyond bright expectations, says Dr. Jeffrey Gaffney, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Gaffney, in an article published in Nature in May, says that college graduates who can “speak the language” of geosciences should be in high demand…
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