College Courses.com Education & Career Blog

The wide state of Texas is home to an array of educational and job opportunities, and the economy is currently looking better than it has since 2000. The occupational areas expected to have the most job growth by 2012, according to statistics found on the Texas Labor Market Information’s website, are:

- Healthcare Support Occupations (39.0%)
- Education, Training & Libarary Occupations (33.2%)
- Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Applications (31.1%)
- Computer and Mathematical Occupations (28.7%)
- Food Preparation & Serving Related Occupations (27.3%)
- Protective Service Occupations (26.7%)
- Personal Care and Service Occupations (26.1%)
- Community and Social Services Occupations (23.7%)
- Business & Financial Operations Occupations (21.5%)

Though each of the twenty-two major occupational group expects some growth, these nine areas exemplify skyrocketing employment, and putting yourself on a career track to pursue these areas will yield the greatest dividends. You can download the full file, which includes breakdowns of specific jobs within the occupational areas, here at Texas LMI’s website. Some specific positions within the fields have a higher or lower projected growth rate than the industry as a whole; for example, Post-secondary teaching positions are expected to grow by 36.2%, while Primary and Secondary teachers by 32.8%.

If you live in Texas, serving the expanding needs of your community in Health, Education, or other Service occupations, which comprise six of the nine most burgeoning fields, will make for a satisfying as well as secure career. These fulfilling jobs offer you the opportunity to have an impact on the lives of others and work towards the good of society and improve yourself in return.

And if you’re looking to get the medical training you need to change your career, CollegeCourses.com doesn’t even need to take you out of your state. The Academy of Professional Careers in Amarillo offers programs in Administrative Medical/Dental Assisting, Dental Assisting, Massage Therapy, Medical Assisting, Office Administration, and Pharmacy Technicianship. Dental Assistant, Medical Assistant, and Medical Office Specialist programs are also available at Texas Careers in Beaumont and in Lubbock. Dallas houses a number of schools with medical training programs, such as Everest College, the Sanford Brown Institute, TechSkills, and Westwood College. Houston has the Bradford School, in addition to many campuses matching those in Dallas. The San Antonio College of Medical and Dental Assistants operates campuses in San Antonio and McAllen.

The National Institute of Technology, with three campuses in Houston, also offers courses in Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology and Network Administration, for those who noted that Computer and Mathematical Occupations are slated to expand by over 28%. Meanwhile, over thirty different programs in areas such as Java Programming, Medical Transcription, IT Engineering, and Web Design are offered at the nationally-recognized TechSkills. Techskills operates campuses in San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas. The ATI-Career Training Center in Hurst and Dallas is capable of training you in Business Administration Technology, Computer Assisted Design, Electronic Technology, Graphic Design, and Information Technology & Network Administration.

Consequently, you can make no excuses about having a dead-end job if you live in Texas. The need in the community exists, and the state claims an especially large amount of schools and colleges whose purpose is to give you exactly the training you need to start a new career. Browse the entire listing of Texas schools, which includes many not mentioned here, and take a step towards a better life and a better community.

Civic leaders in Iowa have taken a look at the labor and demographic projections for the state in the next five years. And they are very, very concerned.

Summing up the problem, the Globe Gazette writes that Iowa is facing an “astronomical” labor shortage, and this is no careless hyperbole. In 2001, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack had examined the ten-year labor plan, and found that by 2011 368,000 Iowans would retire, and 198,000 new jobs would be created, but only 114,000 workers would be available to step up into these vacancies.

Speaking in Mason City, Iowa, he put the question to its residents: “Who is going to farm the land? Who is going to teach our children? Who is going to care for our medical needs?”

The reasons for the shortage are manifold; the retirement of the Baby Boomer generation, which may be a phantom concern in some parts of the country, will hit Iowa very palpably. The problem will couple with the inert population growth, which is marked by a significant decrease in the amount of young people living in the state. For example, in the last thirty years, North Iowa schools have witnessed a 35% reduction in the number of children under the age of 18.

One of the chief contributions to this problem is a lack of motivated and educated business people, to run the existing companies and start the new businesses that keep the state’s population from migrating. To that end, the state is beginning to institute various entrepreneurial centers to train prospective employees, which is only an indicator of how much they welcome someone with a business degree.

Similar labor shortage problems have been arising in neighboring Wisconsin. Manpower Inc., a staffing company based in Milwaukee, placed 4.1 million people in jobs in 72 different countries last year, but is concerned about what the future holds.

Jonas Prising, president of Manpower’s North American operations, said that companies “can’t ignore” the upcoming labor drought. “They have to think about it and then decide how to plan for it,” he explained. Some of the solutions include attempts to lure retirees back into part-time or more flexible positions, and some of them include the institution of training programs to provide skilled workers where they are so desperately needed.

One of these programs, TechReach, trained 29-year-old single mother Antoinette Lucero, deaf since the age of two, to work in electronics. She had been unemployed and on welfare for five years. Her hearing disability may have been an added complication, but it was not the cause; she said that her lack of training was the impediment, even in the midst of an area that is facing a labor shortage.

But it all turned around for her once she received her certification. “I am really happy that there are people out there to give us a chance, to give me a chance to show I can work and contribute to this world,” Lucero said. “It’s a career for me, it’s not just a job. So there’s a big difference. I never felt before that I had a career.”

If you are in the area just west of the Great Lakes that is trying to combat the impending labor crisis, now is the time to improve your own life in addition to improving the society around you. Communities in Iowa and Wisconsin stand in great need of trained, professional individuals to take over the managerial, educational, and medical jobs of the previous generation.

Iowa State University in Ames and Iowa City, Hamilton College in Des Moines, Mason City, Cedar Falls, and Cedar Rapids, Kaplan University and Vatterott College all offer the professional degrees that you need. In Madison, Wisconsin, alone, we can connect you with Herzig College, Madison Media Institute, TechSkills, and the University of Wisconsin—but you can also view the whole state’s listing.

But no matter where you are, you have the ability to change your own life as much as TechReach and Manpower helped Antoinette Lucero change hers. Your new career—not just your new job—lies at the tip of your fingers with CollegeCourses.com! Browse our Online Schools for opportunities that are available in every state and for every state.

Recent statistics shows that medical support jobs in the state of California will have experienced high levels of growth in the past few years and are expected to continue this growth through at least 2014. Specifically highlighted areas include medical assisting, dental assisting, medical billing and coding, pharmaceutical assisting, and medical secretarial work. Registered nurses are also in demand all over the state, particularly in the East Bay area.

In order to meet this demand, several career-oriented schools have opened in California. Arguably the ‘biggest name’ career training center state-wide is the Bryman Institute, which has a staggering number of California campus locations. The list includes Alhambra, Anaheim, Industry, Gardena, Hayward, L.A, Ontario, Reseda, San Bernardino, San Francisco, San Jose, Torrance, and West L.A. Bryman is regionally and nationally respected for its programs in the above mentioned medically-based areas, as well as for its programs in massage therapy and business, which are available at select campus locations. Bryman prides itself on making hand-on, industry-relevant experience the centerpiece of its training programs. This characteristic of a Bryman education sets it apart as a school and sets its students apart as potential employees.

According to an article in the Town Times, Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell has just announced that a state Department of Labor Study projects a 150,000 position growth in the number of new jobs available in-state by 2014. The study also predicts an over 400,000 job increase in the number of positions left vacant due to retirement.

The study also includes the following, more specific points:

–Education and health services will make up over one-third of the newly created jobs.

–Over the 10 year period, nearly half of Connecticut’s leading careers, as measured by the number of new jobs created, will be in the management, professional and technical occupations. This includes healthcare support and practitioners (14.5 percent growth, 13,700 new jobs), business and financial operations (11,500 new jobs), management (10,800 new jobs), and computers and mathematical occupations (19 percent growth, 9,400 new jobs).

Not surprisingly, these are also some of the hottest career paths nationwide. Training is, of course, required to take advantage of these opportunities. Fortunately, Connecticut houses many career-oriented post-secondary schools whose curriculums are centered on just these growing industries. These programs include medical assisting, medical billing/coding, computer networking, legal assisting, computer programming, e-commerce, and executive assisting. This sort of responsiveness to real-world job market conditions is the main advantage offered by schools like the Brandford Hall Career Institute (with campuses in Branford, Southington, and Windsor) and Gibbs College (with a campus in Norwalk). In addition to offering education programs that are both directly relevant to today’s economy and also taught by industry-experienced professors, these schools offer industry-standard facilities and internship possibilities that allow you to, upon graduation, enter the job market with an experience-heavy resume already in hand.

A recent article from the Job Journal shows that, according to recent employment and wage numbers, American IT workers have no reason to fear the offshoring bogeyman that has haunted the dreams of home-grown tech professionals for going-on several years. Nationwide, the industry has experienced its first full year of growth since 2000, as it saw an increase of 61,000 jobs added over jobs cut. The result is an impending labor shortage–best evidenced by the fact that the percentage of American CIO’s who said that IT labor was hard to find and keep doubled over the last year.

This positive news is especially relevant for California tech workers, as the state continues to offer more tech jobs, at higher wages, than any other state in the country. California has also benefitted from a recent $10.4 billion influx of venture capitalist investment, which may well result in a state-wide tech employment boom down the road.

Taking advantage of these opportunities, of course, requires training. One of the most well-respected career-oriented schools in CA that offer IT programs is Techskills, which has campuses in San Jose and San Francisco. Techskills offers IT certification programs for major software developers like Microsoft, CompTIA, Oracle, Cisco, and Java. These certifications are absolutely imperative for anyone looking to take advantage of the tech labor market boom in CA.

Listed below are the ten most rapidly growing careers in Minnesota, along with their anticipated annual growth rates (according to MN Careers.org).

- Social and Human Service Assistant (54%)
- Personal and Home Care Aide (52%)
- Fitness Trainer and Aerobics Instructor (52%)
- Network Systems & Data Communications Analyst (50%)
- Medical Assistant (49%)
- Medical Records & Health Info. Technician (49%)
- Home Health Aide (48%)
- Physician Assistant (48%)
- Post-secondary Teacher (47%)
- Environmental Engineer (45%)

As you can see, six of the ten are in the health care or social services sector of the state economy. Minnesota residents who are in the process of deciding upon a career path should keep this information in mind, as health care and social service careers not only offer the guarantee of personally rewarding, life-affirming work experiences, but also offer job security, which is perhaps best evidenced by the frequency with which we see these high growth rates.

Of Minnesota’s many career-oriented colleges, Herzing College (with locations in Crystal and in Minneapolis) stands out for its programs in Medical Assisting, Dental Assisting, Medical Billing/Coding, and Therapeutic Massage. Argosy University (located in the heart of the Twin Cities) also stands out, not only for its diverse range of Associate’s Degree programs in specialized health care fields like radiology, but also for its social service-oriented Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree programs in fields like Family Therapy, Educational Leadership, and Organizational Management.

Minnesota career-hunters should also keep in mind the still-strong presence of computer networking jobs on the above growth list. While many schools currently offer programs in networking, software development, and systems analysis, not every one also offers valuable industry-recognized certification programs from companies like CompTIA, Cisco, Java, Oracle, and Microsoft. These certifications are increasingly becoming required in both the tech and the business world for even basic entry-level positions. Fortunately for Minnesota residents, nationally-renowned Techskills has a Minneapolis Campus which offers all of the above certifications, as well as select health care-focused programs.