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Career Forecasts
It used to be (in the "good old days") that you could land a good job and advance nicely within a company with a high school diploma and a strong work ethic. You were able to pay your bills, own a home, car, raise the kids and send them to college, but times have changed!
As more and more of you attend and graduate from college, the global workforce will become far more competitive. Your course studies have a direct link to the workplace and how valuable you will be to the company who will become your employer.
Congratulations! Look where you are...seeing a light at the end of that tunnel which leads to your financial future. Good job! Excuse the pun, but that's what you want after graduation. So, what are the job/career forecasts in your field?
According to CNNMoney, college graduates are getting a bit more for their degrees as starting salaries keep rising — with engineers and computer grads commanding the best gains.
The vast majority — 85 percent — of disciplines reporting changes in starting salary offers for the class of 2005 reported increases, according to the Winter 2005 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).
Engineering and computer science graduates saw the biggest gains overall. Civil engineering grads reported a 5.1 percent increase in their average starting salary, now at $43,159.
Starting pay for computer science graduates, on average, jumped 4.9 percent to $51,042, while information science grads are reporting a 3.9 percent, to $43,741.
Elsewhere, marketing graduates posted a hearty 4 percent gain in entry-level pay, to an average of $37,519.
Business administration graduates earn an average of $38,357, up 2.6 percent. The NACE survey notes that many of those jobs were in sales and that the average starting pay for those jobs is $40,395.
Economics-finance graduates received a very modest 0.3 percent increase. Their average pay now stands at $40,719. NACE said there was little data available on liberal arts disciplines, though there are indications pay for this group has fallen.
As a whole, starting pay for liberal arts grads fell 3.6 percent to an average $29,060.
NACE conducts its surveys quarterly. Final results for the school year come in September.
All of the salaries quoted are national averages. The NACE survey looks at starting pay in 70 disciplines at the bachelor’s degree level only.
To view North Dakota Employment and Wages, visit Job Service of North Dakota.
For a look at where the hot jobs will be in coming years, visit http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/03/pf/hotjobs/index.htm.
For the latest on job growth and unemployment, http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/04/news/economy/jobs_january/index.htm.
Visit the following helpful Web sites to aid in your career search:
Click here for additional information on what the job market is like in parts of the United States.
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