Hot jobs

Help is wanted in the Springfield area, and the most promising prospects are in medical, sales and service careers, according to local job placement officials.
“We have jobs galore in the medical field and in truck driving. These are driving jobs that require special licenses. Over-the-road truck driving is wide open right now. In the medical field, nursing, home health care and nurse aides are in demand,” said Jaydean Miller, work force supervisor for the Missouri Career Center.
She added that sales is another field with job openings, as well as hotels, which seek housekeepers and desk clerks.
“As we get closer to tourist time, there are more jobs in the service industry,” Miller said. “They’re just not high-paying jobs. However, get your foot in the door and there’s the opportunity for benefits and working your way up.”
While there are more jobs than workers in the medical, transportation and service industries, the opposite is true of manufacturing.
“A lot of our applicants are looking for production and service-related jobs,” Miller said. “With Fasco and Solo plants closing, we try to get those workers hired on with (manufacturing) companies we have applications for.”
Miller said that most job seekers inquire about jobs with companies such as 3M, Kraft Foods and Carlisle Power Transmission Products. “Those companies do have jobs with us; and they hire a lot of people through us, they just don’t hire as many as we take applications for,” she said, adding that there may be one placement for every 300 to 400 applicants to those companies.
“From the perspective of the job seeker, they want manufacturing jobs. Springfield doesn’t have as many manufacturing jobs as they once had,” Miller said.
“In terms of things other than that, we see people looking for office and clerical jobs.”

Demand for college grads
Jack Hunter, director of Southwest Missouri State University’s Career Center, said that college graduates are in demand in many fields.
“Accounting, nursing, industrial management and construction management careers – those sectors are offering the most opportunity. Students who have degrees in social service, liberal arts, business, and crime and society, there is no limit in that industry,” Hunter said.
Jill Wiggins with Drury University’s Career Center reported similar demand. She said public relations and advertising, business, management trainee programs and accounting are strong. “There’s been no decline in demand for accountants,” she said. “Sales positions are also strong, and there is a demand for commission salespeople.”
Despite budget cuts, Wiggins sees a demand for teachers. “We’ve seen a decline in some districts, but there are always openings in special education and for science and math teachers.”
Hunter said a resurgence of demand in education, after being flat for a number of years, is opening more opportunity for graduates, especially in elementary education. “In this school district where a lot of our teachers go, it’s been tight because of the budget – but that’s loosening,” he said.
Salaries for college graduates, according to a report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, range from $37,220 for industrial management to $42,045 for accounting and $49,475 for graduates with industrial management degrees combined with technology, science and business courses.
The salary figures are an average from fall 2004 to spring 2005, Hunter said.
“Our graduates average $45,600 in accounting – above the national average,” he added.
Elementary education teachers can expect to earn from $27,000 for elementary education and early childhood to middle school and about $29,000 for special
education teachers. “The school districts are also hiring marketing and accounting people,” Hunter said.
Hunter said there is a shortage of applicants to fill geography, geology and planning careers.
“From local contractors to state planners to those who do environmental impact studies, there are never enough of those,” he said.

Grads go to work
Hunter said that SMSU’s Career Center has been successful in placing graduates.
By graduation, 52 percent of SMSU students have accepted positions. Many graduates choose to continue their education, Hunter said.
He added that any graduate with communication skills and the ability to work with a team can find work.
“Employers are starting to hire more, but they’re not hiring just anybody. As challenging as it was to find a job three to four years ago, businesses are now pretty particular about who they hire,” Hunter said.
While it’s generally easy for college
graduates to find work in the Springfield area, he said, that isn’t always to their advantage.
“Many students make the decision to stay here. There are many more who want to stay here than can. In my opinion, many graduates who choose to stay in Springfield are under-employed. Some of the lowest salaries occur because of the large number of students who stay in southwest Missouri. More (than) likely, the national average salaries in Kansas City, St. Louis and Dallas are higher than Springfield,” he said.
For example, graduates with Master of Business Administra-tion degrees are less likely to earn the national average salary if they stay in Springfield, Hunter said.
Accounting graduates, however, can count on a competitive salary locally, while industrial management is competitive within 60 to 70 miles of Springfield.
Wiggins said that because a lot of Drury students are from Springfield, a number of them look for work locally.
“In some areas, we’re just not going to have openings in Springfield and they need to look somewhere else,” Wiggins said. “We tell them to start looking early for positions in this area.”
[[In-content Ad]]