Good things are coming in the New Year! Not many of us want to spend the last few hours of 2016 watching the worn-out year slide off into the sunset. Let’s turn our attention to five welcome things that forecasters promise are on the horizon, and celebrate.
More good jobs with good pay: The future is bright for workers with sophisticated technical skills who can communicate effectively and lead teams of colleagues.
Scores of health care jobs are vacant, and many of them are at the high end of the payscale. Employers are looking for physicians who specialize in geriatrics, dentists, medical laboratory technologists and occupational therapists. Chief nursing officers plus nurses of all types, especially nurses trained to work in specialty areas. Directors of surgery and emergency operations. CEOs and COOs of hospitals.
Demand for digitized video for marketing is opening up fields that didn’t exist a few years ago. These include jobs in motion graphics and customer experience design, marketing automation. Recent college grads are often seeing multiple offers from top-notch firms.
Employers will be hiring computer network administrators, systems engineers, programmers of all stripes and wireless network engineers. In-demand tech positions range from big data and cybersecurity specialists to software and mobile app developers.
Gender equality: As more women outpace men in finishing college, earning graduate degrees and moving into higher-paying science and tech jobs, the gap in earnings for men and women will continue to shrink. The earnings gap essentially disappears among millennials who are college graduates holding professional jobs. But it may take many more years to close entirely.
Based on median earnings, women will be paid 84 cents for every dollar paid to men by 2020. By 2025, the gap will narrow to two pennies. Compares that with the 19-cent difference in 2015, and then consider the 36-cent difference between women and men in 1980. The calculations are based on median earnings.
Food on your doorstep from drones: Google and Amazon are getting an early foot in the door testing food delivery services. It’s part of their plan to eventually dominate food delivery once grocery drop-offs by drones and driverless cars become an everyday sight. The Internet giants are just two of the growing number of providers joining the ranks of grocers selling food online.
Employer assistance in paying off college loans: More employers are planning to attract and retain talent by helping pay off workers’ student debt. That’s a great perk since 70 percent of college grads average $35,000 in student loan debt. The figure soars for those holding advanced degrees and totals between $75,000 and $150,000.
To lure new grads, firms can offer student loan repayment in lieu of a signing bonus. To retain workers, companies can make contributions that grow with years of service. Some employers will offer higher loan repayments for hard-to-fill technical and other slots.
Unbelievably fast wireless service: Fifth-generation wireless technology, or 5G, will revolutionize the mobile internet industry with web speeds 10 to 100 times as fast as today’s. That means HD movie downloads in less than five seconds, lag times less than a thousandth of a second, and ultra-low-power sensors that last for years. AT&T and Verizon are leaders in launching major trials during the new year and full service by 2020.
For more good things coming in 2017, go here.
