Where the Jobs Are

Woman: Getty Images; sign: Corbis

Four decades ago, Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate” was advised to go into “plastics.” Today that celebrated gem of career advice might be “health care.”

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has deemed health care to be the fastest-growing sector of the economy. While this may come as no surprise as the population ages,  it also means good news for workers 50 and older who are considering a career change: The soaring demand for staff in doctor’s offices, clinics, home health care companies, laboratories and hospitals is outstripping the supply of qualified workers from colleges and other training programs.

"Health care is huge," says professor and consultant David DeLong, an expert on the changing workforce. "Every state is projecting shortages of nurses and other skilled workers, especially in rural areas.” In some places the market is so hot that jobs can be found in a single day. At the Regional Medical Center in Leesburg, Fla., qualified candidates who give a good job interview can be offered a position on the spot, says Ingrid Provencher, human resources director. "We know if you're really good you're going to get snatched up."

To meet the shortage, many health care–related organizations are providing programs to beef up their own staffs. "A lot of the industry offers fast-track training and education,” says Bob Skladany, vice president of research and certification for RetirementJobs.com, an online job bank based in Waltham, Mass. “You can become a lab technician or nurse's assistant in a year or less. If you're 60 years old, it's not too late to start a substantial career in the health care field. In Michigan, David DeLong points out, “there's even a program to train laid-off auto workers to be nurses.”

Ruth McNiff, 64, is halfway through a two-year physician's assistant program at the University of New England in Portland, Maine. "Medicine always fascinated me," says McNiff, a former litigation lawyer. "But I didn't want to take the rest of my life to get established in a new field." Salaries for newly minted physician’s assistants range from $60,000 to $100,000. But money isn't the main attraction for McNiff; she hopes to use her new skills in international relief work.

Health care is not the only field offering growing opportunities for older workers, whose portion of the labor force will grow more than five times faster than the rest of the workforce in the next 10 years.

According to the latest government projections, other in-demand industries include contract and temporary agencies like Manpower, Robert Half and Kelly Services. These companies offer flexible schedules and $10- to $70-per-hour jobs, says RetirementJobs.com's Skladany. The high end of the salary scale, he says, is reserved for engineering, scientific and accounting positions.

Retail is another good bet. Specialty retailers like Trader Joe's, Borders, Barnes and Noble, REI and L.L.Bean provide attractive pay and benefits plus a congenial work environment. "Anyone with respectable personal skills can make $10 to $12 an hour to start, then advance to supervisor or manager," Skladany says. He notes that banking, insurance and financial services companies like John Hancock, Fidelity and Vanguard are also eager for mature workers. "They've learned that older customers don't want a 28-year-old telling them how to handle their 401(k) investments."

In fact, many companies that once thrived with twentysomething employees are now turning to seasoned workers to remain competitive. That's good news for savvy 50-and-over job-hunters eager to use their skills in health care and other expanding industries.