trades

11 Jobs With High Earnings and Growth

Tim Lemke — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 12:00:03 +0000

You need a job. But not just any job. You want a job where opportunities are plentiful, and you'd like to make a decent wage.

The nation's economy is always shifting, but there are a number of careers that are projected to need thousands of new qualified workers within the next decade. And many of them offer great pay. Some may be in industries you never considered, but if you're open minded, you may just find the perfect position for you. Here are several jobs that offer good projected growth in employment opportunities and wages.

1. Market Research Analysts

Be a part of the Big Data revolution. These days, there's a wealth of data being collected about our buying habits and web activity and everything else we do from companies like Amazon and Facebook. Someone has to slice and dice that stuff and turn it into actionable information. This job has a projected growth rate of 19% or more, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with median pay between $50,000 and $75,000.

2. Elevator Installers and Repairman

What? Fixing elevators? Well, BLS reports that position has a projected growth rate of 13% or more and a median salary of more than $75,000. Pretty good for a position that does not require a college degree.

3. Registered Nurses

As Baby Boomers age, the demand for nurses is expected to grow by 16% between 2014 and 2024, representing about 439,300 positions. And these are well-paying jobs; the median salary for a registered nurse is about $65,000.

4. Software Developers

The world is going to continue to need applications for computers, smartphones, and other devices. BLS projects a 17% increase in employment opportunities in this sector by 2024, with a median salary of more than $90,000.

5. Civil Engineers

America is always going to be building things. The BLS says there will be 23,600 more employment opportunities for those with skills to design and oversee large construction projects by 2024. Median pay is about $80,000.

6. Genetic Counselors

A whole new world of careers opened up once scientists discovered how to map the human genome. The intersection of health and genetics is now a very big deal. Genetic counselors help people understand how their genetics may have an impact on their future health. They may work in private practice, for health care companies, or even insurance companies. Counselors are already paid $65,000 — and BLS says there will be a 29% jump in jobs by 2024.

7. Dieticians and Nutritionists

People are becoming more aware of how food choices affect their health, and this is one profession that is expected to play a key role in the health community as doctors look to prevent disease, not just treat it. There were about 67,000 dieticians and nutritionists in 2014, but you can expect that to rise by 16% by 2024. The median salary is a very solid $55,000.

8. Occupational Therapists

Even a low-paid occupational therapist can make $50,000, and those employed in skilled nursing facilities can make close to $80,000 annually. Occupational therapists help ill, disabled, or injured people to become more mobile and carry out tasks. And the job outlook is good, with a 27% increase in jobs by 2024, outpacing even most jobs in the healthcare arena. One caveat: you will likely need a master's degree to work in this field. (See also: 7 Certifications That Add Big $$ to Your Salary)

9. Logistician

People are never going to stop buying things, and we'll always need someone to figure out how to move goods from one place to another. Logisticians work in all kinds of organizations to set up supply chains and manage a life cycle of a product. You may need a bachelor's degree for these jobs. But if you're qualified, you can make upwards of $73,000 annually. More than 2,500 logistician jobs are projected to come online within the next decade.

10. Corporate Trainers and Development Specialists

As the economy transforms, there will be people needed to help workers get the necessary skills and certifications. As a trainer, you will plan and administer programs to keep employees' qualifications up to date. These jobs pay pretty well — about $56,000 annually — and there will be an 7% increase in employment opportunities by 2024.

11. Lab Technician

Another job in the healthcare field that should see good growth over the next few years. Lab techs will test samples of bodily fluids and other substances. It's an important job, and you don't need a medical degree. Median salary is about $50,000, and there will be 52,000 new lab tech positions in the near future.

Note: All data via the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is a terrific resource for job searchers and the career-curious.

Did we miss any jobs with serious growth potential on this list? Let us know in the comments!

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This article is from Tim Lemke of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Crime Scene Cleaner and 4 Other Trades That Pay Surprisingly Well

Brittany Lyte — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 09:00:15 +0000

These days, the dream of owning a home with two dogs, a gaggle of kids, and a white picket fence will cost you something fierce. In most pockets of this country, the median U.S. household income of $52,000 simply won't cut it. But you needn't enroll in law or medical school to earn a fine living. In fact, there are several high-paying jobs floating under the radar that can help you earn a desirable salary — without all those lectures on ethics and anatomy. Read on for our roundup of the top trades that pay surprisingly well.

1. Elevator Repairer

The median pay for an elevator repairer in the U.S. is $78,620, and can be as high as $110,000 in places where the job is in demand such as New York, California, Illinois, Oregon, Maine, Massachusetts, and Hawaii. While only 27 people a year die in elevator crashes — you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning — more than 10,000 people a year are injured in elevator malfunction incidents. When something goes wrong, an elevator repairer is one of the first people called on the scene for help. Even more common than injuries and deaths are cases of inconvenience: People get stuck inside elevators quite often, which is why this job is well-paid as well as important.

2. Geographer

The job of mapping the world may seem gone with the wind, but there are actually 1,700 modern-day Alexander von Humboldts in the U.S. who track human activity, chart demographic trends, study migration patterns, and, of course, sketch and edit maps of points of interest across our planet. If you're lucky enough to secure a geographer gig — they are few and far between — the rewards are handsome. In addition to enjoying a contemporary job rooted in the age of global exploration, you'll earn a median salary of about $75,000. There's more good news: Geographer jobs have a rapid growth forecast rate of nearly 30%, which means new job opportunities are sprouting across the country.

3. Crab Fisherman

If you're looking to make fast cash, a crab fisherman's life may be for you. The dangerous work of collecting crabs from freezing, tumultuous waters is handsomely rewarded. Crab fisherman can earn $60,000 in just two to three months. If that kind of money seems worth the risk of taking on the most dangerous job in the nation, you may want to head to Alaska. Crab fishermen in the 49th state tend to be the highest earners. You do not need a high school degree for this craft, but strength and guts are all but required.

4. Crime Scene Cleaner

Crime doesn't pay. But crime cleanup certainly does. The job of cleaning up blood and shattered glass and toxic hazards takes a strong stomach, but with a few years experience you can earn upwards of $80,000. It's also not a 9-to-5 gig; you need to be ready to jump into action at a moment's notice. But there are few other occupations that can give you the thrill of feeling like you're living in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

5. Landfill Gas Operator

Landfills contain tons of garbage that produce methane gas, a byproduct of the natural breakdown process. Landfill gas operators remove the gas, which can be dangerous if left unchecked. It's a stinky job — literally — but what doesn't stink is the take-home pay. You can earn as much as $148,000 by monitoring gas levels and diverting excess fumes that could become hazardous.

Do you work in a high-paying trade? Tell us about it in the comments below!

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This article is from Brittany Lyte of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Barter Explained: Why It's Wise to Barter

Anthony James Donnelly — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:00:02 +0000

"Barter." We hear that word a lot these days. Do a Google-search and you'll be deluged with websites on the subject. But what exactly is barter, why is barter seeing a huge resurgence due to the bad economy right now, and how can you get involved with bartering?

So, what is barter and why the excitement?

Barter, simply put, is the "cashless exchange of goods and services between parties." An example of bartering in business would be a florist exchanging a bouquet of flowers for an oil change at a car repair shop. On an individual basis, it's what kids do when they "swap" or "exchange" trading cards in the school yard, or if you mow your neighbor's lawn in exchange for them cleaning your car. These are all examples of bartering.

Benefits: why barter, and how does it work?

Let's build on the above examples. Children often have a much simpler outlook on life due to their age and inexperience. Trading things they have but don't really want for things they do want just makes simple sense. Likewise, as adults, if you hate mowing grass, but enjoy cleaning, the neighborly example just makes sense too. The outcome is still the same — it just gets done in a more enjoyable manner. The next time you're faced with a chore you dislike, why not ask around your neighborhood? You're sure to find somebody willing to trade with you.

The benefits for a business owner are just the same, but in a slow economy much more important. Almost every business has the constant burden of cash flow. You've heard the expression "Too much month at the end of the money"? Most business owners have double the bills to pay (a personal mortgage and rent for their company, two utility bills, etc.) and are totally responsible for the amount of money that comes in. Therefore, the flow of money is twice as important to them. Let's break down the example above to see how it works.

The florist has already bought and paid for the flowers. (They are in her inventory as a perishable item.) What does it really cost her to put together a $35 bunch of flowers? Her cost (cost of goods) is probably about $15. So, if she trades that $35 bunch of flowers for an oil change she would have paid $35 cash for, the benefits are as follows:

She just saved herself $20 in cash.
She turned over her inventory.
She potentially made a new customer.
She has potentially marketed herself to a new area.

How does this benefit the mechanic? It helps him in much the same way. He saves himself the cash outlay for the flowers, she becomes a new customer, she may recommend him to her friends and associates, and he filled some dead or down time he had.

All that just to save $20 cash?

Admittedly, that does seem a laborious way to save $20, so what's the big deal if companies are saving so little? The above scenario was an example of traditional barter or what is called reciprocal trading (just like the old days, two parties trading with each other). Even though it seems a small savings, it's actually almost a 50% cost reduction. What if you could save 50% on other things? Construction work, landscaping, printing, perhaps put on a new roof, take a vacation, do more advertising, or repave your parking lot? If done correctly, from an economical point of view, bartering is actually better than using cash, because it is creating something from nothing. Or to put it another way, bartering takes your surplus (time, inventory, or capacity) and turns it into useful things you would have had to spend money on. Now that makes sense in any economy!

The challenge of traditional barter vs. a barter exchange.

Any smart business owner would love to be able to save 50% on their cash expenses. Some of the problems with traditional barter are:

Finding a match. Example: how do you find a roofer that wants $5000 of flowers?
Timing: if you do find a roofer, do they want the flowers now?
How do you ensure the trade happens amicably?
Who ensures the trade is fair value?

Let's tackle these points in order.

1. Finding a match

Even though many business owners have more time on their hands and could spend that time calling around other businesses looking for a trade, most are not hardened sales professionals. Can you really imagine the florist phoning 30 mechanics to see who wanted to swap flowers for an oil change? Now imagine her dilemma trying to find a roofing company! Most business owners can't be bothered, so they usually just spend the cash or go without.

2. Timing

Let's just say she does find a roofing company that is willing to take on the job. Do they want the flowers right now? Perhaps they want a $150 bouquet for the next 34 weeks, or they need the flowers for an upcoming wedding. That is all extra stuff to keep track of and budget for.

3. An amicable trade

Since they are both experts in their own fields, they know their own value, but what ensures that they have a good deal happening? This point is so closely linked to the next, I've decided to expand more there.

4. Ensuring a fair trade

Horror stories abound with people trying to barter with others and not getting a fair deal: either they give their stuff and the other party doesn't reciprocate, or they short them, or it simply doesn't happen as planned. Obviously, there is no benefit to something that doesn't happen correctly, but how do you ensure it is fair for all concerned?

Because of the above pitfalls and problems, organizations specializing in bartering emerged in the mid-1950s called barter exchanges. Many early barter companies encountered some challenges, but because of their need, some improvements in the industry have been made. Even using an organized barter company from the last century had its problems (inflated pricing, cash-blends negating the savings benefits, cash business converting to barter, and under the table deals).

Not until Merchants Barter Exchange (MBE) came on the scene in 2000, setting a brand new standard for organized bartering did the industry change forever. Since then, every other barter company of any size has been trying to copy the ethics and standards of MBE, which thus far is the only American barter company to be able to do the small trades like every other barter company, but also the large scale bartering transactions (like $100,000 of printing, $70,000 of paving work, $30,000 worth of appliances, all entirely on trade with no cash).

So how do barter exchanges work?

By acting as both the bank and the coordinator between transactions, an exchange is able to control how trades are handled. In simple terms, demand for goods and services comes into the exchange from the members around the US. From there, the barter experts coordinate where that demand goes. Nothing is traded directly, so there are none of the challenges of one party going first, then not getting stuff in return. The exchange brokers keep track of everything via their sophisticated software platform, transferring barter dollars as credits for the equal cash value of trades.

Uncle Sam and the tax implications?

Obviously, any form of commerce has the interest of Uncle Sam. Back in 1982, an act of Congress deemed all barter companies the same as banks and credit card companies ("Third Party Record Keepers"), and therefore, they must issue 1099b forms to members each year and treat transactions the same as cash for reporting needs. See the IRS website for more details on bartering income.

Guest Post Blurb:

This is a guest post by Anthony James Donnelly, a barter expert, business consultant, and serial entrepreneur.

Links to other articles by Anthony:

This article is from Anthony James Donnelly of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Zen Spring Cleaning (and making a little cash off it too)

Maggie Wells — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 08:47:04 +0000

This is it. Tomorrow is the beginning of the big day the husband and I have waited anxiously for all winter: spring-cleaning. The kids are going to grandma’s over night and armed with a couple of Dwell Magazines and a few books on creating Zen in the home, we’ve vowed to organize the garage and kick the clutter habit once in for all or at least for 2008. Our goal? Nothing stacked on any surface and nothing double stacked in the bookcases. We want to walk in the living room and see flat surfaces everywhere.

My mother was actually the queen of this. Before every Christmas she’d place two grocery bags in the middle of the living room and tell my brother and I that they had to be filled with things we didn’t play with or read anymore before Santa would come with new things. As a spring take on this, my husband and I are shooting for twenty brown shopping bags filled with things we don’t want or use––wish us luck. It’s good to create your financial goal for spring-cleaning too because it helps you let go of things that may be worth something that you don’t really want or neat. We’ve set the goal of $1000 of selling on eBay from our Spring-cleaning and $300 for a garage sale. That’s almost as much as George Bush’s economic stimulus package for a family of four.

My husband is better at this than I am. As a former eBay Powerseller, he doesn’t even let something in the house unless he can assess its resale value the moment it enters the house. I don’t quite think that way though I’m learning. Here’s a list of a few household items and perhaps the best thing that can be done with them and when.

As I look across the living room and out the window into the garage the number one thing I see cluttering our lives is reading material: books, magazines, comics. You name a magazine and we’ve got an issue somewhere. But our house is a dainty 1000 square feet and there is literally no room left in the six bookcases in the house. If this sounds familiar to you, stop and ask yourself what the hell you need all these books for? Even if you’ve already read all the books in your collection (I’m betting you haven’t, because I sure as hell haven’t) when will you have time?

So, the husband and I had a book chat this evening and I think it was a pretty sound agreement: here’s how we are dealing with the books in the house and in the garage:

•Out of print and rare books stay
•Current reads for research, interest stay
•Children’s books stay
•Books used for school stay (I teach)
•Mass market books, even those we like, go
•Current Best sellers go
•Books we love go if there’s no chance we’ll re-read them in less than 5 years

This is making organizing the bookcases much easier. The living room bookcases will now house out of print, rare, and current reads. The garage bookcases will store books used for school and rows of books scanned and ready to sell on eBay and Amazon. Oh my goodness! Space has opened up! But what to do with the ‘go’ pile?

Garage sale, donate to your local Friends of the Library, sell or swap online (www.bookmooch.com or www.titletrader.com for example). Books I love I often give away to friends and students. We usually send friends not one present, but a Christmas or birthday box of presents. Throwing a couple of good books in gives the recipient good reads and opens up space.

One tip for selling books on eBay and Amazon, go through the book collection and see if you have any college reads. Set those aside and label that box college. Come August, list that box of books on eBay once students have started scouting for this semester’s list. No matter what you charge, it’ll be cheaper than the college bookstore and that’s what they’ll be looking for. Books have such little resell value that the only time to cash in is really at the beginning of each semester.

As they are heading out of your dominion, label the boxes of books appropriately so you don’t have to go searching through them again and again to find out what’s in there.

Magazines and comics, believe it or not, have a much higher resell value. I attribute this to there being more photos and pictures and Americans not having the patience for books without such things. While my husband has ever copy of WIRED magazine ever printed, and I hold onto the National Geographics and Harper’s, most other things we’ve agreed not to hold onto. Yet somehow, there are stacks here and there. It seems a shame to have them go to the recycling. Especially the ones we didn’t get around to reading. What to do?

•The ones with good ads and photos put in the kids are supply bin—you never know when you are going to need to make a collage with the preschoolers.

•Library free table donation
•Waiting rooms need you’re Sun Magazines to balance out the Good Housekeeping––if you have a lot of cool small press magazines drop them around town strategically and it’s as good a political statement as any. Hooray! The religious homeschool kid just picked up your copy of Bitch Magazine: Feminist response to pop culture! Your job is done.
•All music or acting related magazines are going to go on eBay. Because someone somewhere wants that Vanity Fair with Harry Potter and my Bust Magazine with Sandra Oh. Currently my husband is unloading a secret stash of Rayguns he forgot he had. Every one of them got a bid.

Next we have too many DVDs and CDs. If it ain’t something you’ll watch time and time again or is a classic then why have it? Keep The Princess Bride; get rid of Kindergarten Cop. Once my husband has made files of our CDs to play on our computers and iPods, we rarely ever see the CDs again. So why keep them? Occasionally nostalgia will get in the way. I’m not giving up my tape of Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man because I bought it for .99 back in the day and it was the first time I’d ever heard him and the record store I bought it at has long since closed (what a sap).

Then there are the hidden items in the house taking up valuable real estate in the closets––the clothes and shoes. My husband insists that he should have no more than six pairs. OMG! Only six?! Yeah, that’s not working for me but I can make an effort not to go beyond 20. If you haven’t worn it in two years it should be in the bye-bye pile. Clothes are another matter entirely. There are clothes you wear and then, if you are like me, clothes you collect. And then there is the matter of keeping at least five different sizes.

I apply the same get rid of stance that we apply to the books:

•Keep rare, vintage, interesting pieces
•Keep functional things you wear everyday
•Get rid of anything that makes you look fat because, it’s always going to make you look fat (odds are it’s not just the clothes)
*Get rid of everything else.

The get rid of pieces do best at garage sales or donations to the thrift store. My advice is to find smaller thrift stores to donate to or make friends with someone who works or manages one. Odds are that if you drop off five boxes of clothes and you see a sweater you like, you can get them to give it to you. I have two I donate to that I also shop at and I try to only buy from them on days I’ve donated. They either give me a huge discount or let me walk away with a free bag of goodies. It feels very freeing to get rid of the wait of five boxes with a simple cardigan in your hand.

Toys! That’s the hard part. There are our kids’ toys and all those remnants of our childhoods we’ve bought on eBay. My husband’s solution for toys and Zen Spring Cleaning was to create a whole wall of shelving in the garage with white storage boxes. He’s labeled them things like “Superheroes” and “Thomas the Train” and “Hello Kitty” and “Lego.” Each kid gets access to one box from the toy wall a week so that there are no more than two toy boxes in the house at any one time plus art supplies and puzzles. We continually sift out toys we don’t want in the house to garage sale, donation, or giveaway prizes.

There's also the karmic side to it. I find the more stuff you give away, the more things you want seem to come your way. My daughter receives hand me downs with the tags still on them and I can't help but think that if I quit giving away her things she's outgrown, my freebies would go to.

Finally, return everything you may have borrowed to their rightful owners. The owners will be mad you are returning stuff they have no room for, but insist. It’ll get the ball rolling for their spring-cleaning too. And have that garage sale next weekend too.

What’s lurking in your closet, garage and living room that you should get rid of? Where will it end up?

This article is from Maggie Wells of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: