We are fortunate to live in the greatest country on earth where opportunity and liberty abound. Even during times of recession, the “American Dream” is alive and well!
In America, living the “American Dream” for most working Americans is linked to the wages earned. All things considered, the more money earned on your job the better your quality of life. Today, in almost every case, people who earn good to high wages are skilled workers.
In today’s information and knowledge driven labor market, about 70 percent of the jobs are skilled jobs. Nearly a third of all jobs are high skill and high median pay jobs (about 36 million jobs). Anyonecanachieve refers to the 36 million jobs as top jobs.
On the website we’ve identified the occupational titles of those jobs. Unfortunately, minorities are grossly underrepresented in such top jobs. For example, African Americans hold such jobs at a rate of about 6%. At the other end of the pay spectrum, African Americans are overrepresented (sometimes 18% of incumbents) in low skilled and low pay occupations. Of course, a number of factors are implicated in this but one thing for sure is more minorities will need to think about preparing for such top occupations.
A college degree is required or desired for nearly all the top occupations we identified.
The purpose of the website is to draw attention to these great occupations – provide occupational information through mentors and to give interested students lots of support, strategy advice and encouragement.
The jobs are located in Management and Professional Specialty occupational groups. The number of such jobs grow at a faster rate than jobs in other occupational categories. A large number of replacement jobs will be available too as so called ‘baby boomers” retire.
Due to demographic changes in the U.S. population, by necessity more African Americans and Hispanic Americans will need to prepare for these extraordinary opportunities.
The 330 Occupational Titles We Recommend fall under SVP* 7,8 and 9 (About 36 million jobs in the U.S. labor market, 2008.)
Source: http://online.onetcenter.org/help/online/svp
*SVP or Specific Vocational Preparation – Read More