BY Dona Dezube
Monster Finance Career Expert
The job outlook for 2012 is more of the same with a stalled employment market expected to add only 1.3 million new positions annually — slightly lower than 2011’s 1.5 million jobs, says Marisa Di Natale, Moody’s Analytics director.
That job outlook sounds OK until you realize that almost 9 million jobs disappeared during the recession. “We’ll be in recovery mode for all of 2012,” Di Natale says. It will take until 2014 for the employment market to return to its prerecession size, says Di Natale, who predicts companies will create 2.7 million jobs in 2013 and 4.5 million jobs in 2014.
The job opportunities being added back to the market will be different from the ones lost during the recession. “Many of the jobs being created are at the top and the bottom of the skill set,” Di Natale says. “There’s not a ton being added in the middle.”
The job outlook is great for highly skilled workers (think finance, technology or engineering), along with entry-level workers in nonoffshorable service jobs (such as some hospitality jobs and healthcare jobs), Di Natale says. The job outlook for semiskilled workers is weak. Job opportunities in the middle have disappeared as technology replaces workers like receptionists, while manufacturing jobs have been offshored to lower-cost foreign workers, she adds.
Skill Set Focus
If you had one of the 8.75 million jobs eliminated in the recession, you’ll likely need additional training or education to find a new job, especially if your skills are specific to an industry like construction, says Kerry Chou, a senior practice leader for World at Work, a human resources trade association.
“We have millions of people out of work, but the kinds of jobs that are going to be needed in the future aren’t necessarily the ones where the current unemployed population can go out and get two weeks of training and switch into the careers,” Chou says.
Good options include blue-collar technical training and healthcare certifications, two fields with excellent job outlooks, according to Jodi Chavez, senior vice president for Ajilon Professional Staffing, a Melville, New York, recruiting firm. You may also have to be flexible about where you live, since local economies have recovered at different rates.
If improving your skills and education or relocating to another job market aren’t options for you, you’ll still have more opportunity to find work in 2012 than you did in 2011. “Skilled workers will find employment more quickly in 2012,” Chavez says. “However, when jobs are added to the labor pool, unskilled jobs will also be added in great number.”
Read the complete article and more from the NY Daily News – HERE
