Published: February 09, 2008 08:21 pm            

Now Hiring: Nursing, teaching, truck driving offer best outlooks in Southern Indiana job growth

Nursing is the hottest job in Southern Indiana, followed by elementary school teachers and truck drivers, according to a new report from the Indiana Business Research Center.

A “hot” job is one in a career field that has a large number of openings, a salary above the state median and sizable growth, said Rachel Justis, author of the report. Justis is a geodemographic analyst for the IBRC, part of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.

“We looked at a set of jobs that pay people well, regardless of if they’re looking to change careers or enter the work force,” Justis said.

“Job areas that are usually listed as having the highest need, or number of openings, are, in fact, entry-level jobs that tend to pay low wages. We instead focused on careers that offer not only great opportunities to start, but will be good throughout and to the end.”

NURSING

In the next six years, the demand for nursing will jump 29 percent in Region 10 (Clark, Crawford, Floyd, Harrison, Scott and Washington counties), the third highest increase in the state’s 11 regions, Justis said. The median salary for nursing in these counties was also third, at more than $53,000 per year.

Throughout the state, nursing is tops in seven regions and ranks second in the four others.

Indiana will add about 15,400 nursing jobs by 2014, Justis said. The field bests a statewide average of job growth projections by nearly 20 percent.

“Nursing is huge. It just far surpasses everything else in the state,” Justis said.

Mimi McKay taught nursing at Indiana University Southeast for 11 years before becoming dean of the institution two years ago. She said current demand for nursing is high, but will inevitably decrease.

“Demand for nurses is really cyclical,” she said. “After a real lull in the 1990s, it’s become competitive to get into school again.”

In the past five years, the school has averaged 100-150 applications, but can only admit about 50 students per year, McKay said.

“There’s more and more job opportunities other than hospital nursing now,” McKay said. “Nurses can go into other, related fields now.”

A wave of baby boomer retirement in the field accounts for the lion’s share of the openings, Justis said. Expansion of health care, especially in rural areas, also plays a part.

“Today, people are going to the doctor more often. People are going in for smaller health issues, preventive measures,” Justis said. “But also, a lot of people are just not taking care of themselves as well and need more medical attention as a result.”

The average patient is also living longer than when McKay began as a nurse in 1986, she said. The medical system and its employees are continually being stretched thinner, she said.

“Nowadays, the patients nurses are taking care of, 10 to 15 years ago, (those patients) would have been in intensive care,” she said. “Patients are definitely sicker these days. ... But that just means that (nurses) have to learn more to take care of their patients.”

The current, and perpetual, shortage of nurses can be partly attributed to the field’s high turnover rate, with many nurses leaving their careers before retirement, McKay said.

“A lot of nurses get burned out. They complain of being overworked and underpaid,” McKay said. “In a lot of instances there is mandatory overtime these days because of unfilled positions. They can’t just leave the patients unattended.”

To meet the demand for nurses and the influx of students joining the field, education programs need more instructors.

“Sometimes its hard for places to get and keep [teachers]. It’s not unusual to take a pay cut to come to teach at a university ... and that’s a big issue,” McKay said.



EDUCATION

Between now and 2014, school officials expect to hire a substantial number of elementary teachers in the region, making that career the second best field to enter, according to Justis’ report.

However, Gloria Murray, dean of the school of education at IUS, pointed out that officials with the New Albany-Floyd County School Corp., have been talking about cutbacks and hiring freezes.

“In some instances they weren’t replacing retiring teachers because of finances,” she said. “But it bears to look at each county differently. As far as the demand [in Floyd County], I haven’t seen it. No one has been calling and telling us they need more teachers.”

Still, most, if not all, students that graduate each year from IUS with education degrees are hired as teachers — mostly in Southern Indiana and northern Kentucky, Murray said.

A few factors in play in the education job market are resulting in an increased amount of teaching positions in some places, Murray said.

“Most demand, I would guess, stems from retiring baby boomers,” she said.

Murray also theorized that population growth — resulting in more students in elementary schools — is also a cause for an increased need for teachers.

But the best opportunities to find employment in the education area lie in gaining specialization training, Murray said. The demand for teachers certified in English as a Second Language opens many doors for education students looking for employment, she said.

“There’s a strong need for those who can work with kids that don’t speak English. We’ve responded to that in our classrooms [at IUS], and so have our students. More and more are seeking the training.”

IUS is sharing a five-year, $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education with a few Southern Indiana counties to help implement language training for school employees, Murray said.

Other paths for potential teachers to follow is to consider the field’s non-cyclical needs — including math and science teachers and special education instructors.

“We can’t produce (those teachers) fast enough,” she said.

Post-secondary education positions place fifth on Justis’ hottest jobs list in Region 10, mostly due to growing needs at IUS and the Ivy Tech campus in Sellersburg. In four other regions, each home to a major state university, post-secondary education jobs are growing faster than nursing positions.



TRUCKING

Truck driving is the third hottest field in Southern Indiana, according to Justis’ report.

At Sellersburg’s Truck Driving Institute, Charles Pryor, an instructor at the school since 1989, said he’s noticed the growing number of applications.

“It appears that our attendance has gone up lately,” he said. “When unemployment goes up, we get a lot of applications. ... People tend to come to us as a last resort.”

Changes in the truck driving industry over the past 10 to 15 years, though, have made the field more attractive.

“There are more regional routes now. More companies are promising more nights home per week and most weekends,” Pryor said. “When I started, I’d be out for four weeks at a time before getting home.”

Pryor estimates there are at least eight trucking schools in Indiana, including ones in Indianapolis and Evansville. TDI is the closest training facility in the state for most of Southern Indiana.

Compared to the process of becoming a registered nurse or elementary school teacher, trucking training takes a relatively short period of time, requiring only three weeks of school, Pryor said. This not only makes the job appealing from a time standpoint, but it also costs considerably less than pursuing nursing or teaching careers.

Pryor is skeptical that the jump in applications at his school will become a long-term trend.

“It’s like anything — there’s good times and bad,” he said. “When I started almost 20 years ago, we were doing really good. Then it took a nosedive in the 1990s because, among other things, issues with student loans. There’s a lot of factors that make our numbers what they are.”

Pryor is in his fourth stint as a trucking instructor after coming to the industry in his 40s. He left instructing to climb back in a rig on three occasions because he “felt to the itch to get back on the road from time to time.” At 67, though, he said he is probably done on the road.

“I tell every class, it’s what you make of it,” he said. “If it’s been as good to you as it’s been to me, then you’ll enjoy yourself and make a good living.”

Regardless of changes in the industry and the vacillating amount of applications his school receives, trucking will remain a vital part of the employment picture in Southern Indiana and across the country, Pryor said.

The fourth hottest career in Region 10 is loan officer positions, including real estate mortgage loan officers, collection analysts and underwriters.

Justis’ findings, detailed in her article, “Nurses in Demand: Hot Jobs by Indiana Region,” can be found in the latest issue of INContext, a periodical of the Indiana Business Research Center. Her article is based on data from the Indiana Department of Work Force Development.

        

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