Where the jobs are Polish off that resume, fast-growing careers await Wednesday, May 21, 2008 • BY BETH FITZGERALD • Star-Ledger Staff Susan D'Anna isn't waiting for nurses and technicians to show up at hospital doors. She's hunting for them in high schools all over New Jersey. That often means bringing college-level courses such as anatomy into high schools to get teenagers hooked on health care. "I'd really like to start earlier than high school, and go into the middle schools and tell kids about health-care careers," said D'Anna, director of health science careers for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. UMDNJ has reached more than 4,000 high school kids in 45 New Jersey high schools since the program started in 1993. Job growth stalled in New Jersey this year, in sync with a nationwide economy that's flirting with a recession. There's also concern over the state's ability to create jobs that pay enough money to sustain the state's high cost of living. But even so, New Jersey's 4 million-plus work force keeps churning out job openings, from french fry friars to forensic accountants, according to experts and state statistics. "There is quite a large demand for replacement workers: People retire, or move out of the state, or have children and stop working for awhile," said Rae Rosen, senior economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It helps, of course, to be well educated. About 30 percent of New Jersey's workers have a bachelor's degree or higher, and prospects are bright for those who can join the ranks of law, engineering and accounting, experts said. But state figures project over the next six years there will be a need for people in a variety of occupations, including hairdressers, auto mechanics, carpenters, electricians, legal secretaries, plumbers and police officers. The hottest career ticket these days is a registered nurse -- No. 1 on the list of the state's 20 fastest growing, high-skill jobs. Nurses' salaries average more than $60,000 a year, and New Jersey needs 3,740 more of them each year through 2014, both to care for our aging baby-boom population, and to replace the baby-boomer nurses who are retiring in droves, according to the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Plenty of other fast-growing health-care careers don't require four years of college. These include medical technicians and secretaries, nursing aides, licensed practical nurses and home health aides. Wages vary, depending on training requirements and demand: Respiratory therapy techs average $41,590 a year; home-health aides, $20,850. Jobs also are being created in relatively low-paying occupations: retail salesperson, cashier, fast food preparer and server, waiter and waitress. The fastest-growing, low skill requirement job is in retail sales, which will grow by 6,340 positions per year -- at an average pay of $24,530 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "If you go into retail, you want to think about getting more training and credentials and becoming a manager or a buyer, instead of working the cash register," said Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers. Five different teaching categories, meanwhile -- high school, middle school, elementary, pre-school and special education -- are among the top 20 fastest-growing high-skill jobs. The average starting salary for teachers is $43,347 and the average salary for all teachers is $60,937, said Frank Belluscio, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association. Both nursing and teaching have created fast-track programs to fill their worker pipelines. More than 30 percent of new teacher hires now come via the "alternate route" that enables candidates who already have a bachelor's degree to become certified teachers after about a year of coursework and practice teaching. UMDNJ also has an accelerated, 15-month nursing degree for individuals who've already graduated from college. "We have students from diverse backgrounds and age ranges from early 20s to mid-50s," said Dawn Kozlowski, assistant dean, prelicensure programs. "People go into other fields, then wake up and realize nursing is what they really want to do." There's still a shortage of accountants, but college enrollment has surged in response to the well-publicized shortage, said Ralph Thomas, executive director of the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants. After dipping to a low of around 44,000 in the late 1990s, the number of accounting graduates in the United States reached a healthy level of 64,000 last year. In November, 100 New Jersey CPAs visited 150 New Jersey high schools, spreading the word to thousands of teenagers. "Accounting is still on a roll, it's still hot and we see the demand remaining strong for the next three to five years," he said. New Jersey also could put people to work in the coming years in the "green economy" -- jobs that reduce energy consumption overall, or reduce the state's dependence on fossil fuels. But green jobs are scattered across scores of occupations, from engineers fine-tuning solar panel designs, to carpenters installing energy-efficient windows, and hence don't turn up on "hot job" lists. Carol Rutgers, director of cooperative education at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, said she has placed students in internships working on wind power in southern New Jersey, and organic farming in Thailand. She has more job opportunities than students available to fill them. "We need more students to take up environmental science," she said. "You can't take a back seat and think somebody else will do something about global warming." Beth Fitzgerald may be reached at efitzgerald@starleger.com or (973) 392-4111. © 2008 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.