Health and Education Careers
Education and health-related careers are essentially “recession-proof,” according to a recent study by the Indiana Business Research Center. This means graduates in these fields experience less unemployment and less time job-searching in comparison to graduates in other fields.
The study, entitled Major Unemployment: How Academic Programs of Study Affect Hoosier Unemployment Patterns, used statistics collected by the Indiana Workforce Intelligence System (IWIS) to analyze the type of job environment that graduates from Indiana universities fare.
Out of all the graduates in the study, 23.7 percent were hired into the healthcare and social assistance sector and 21 percent into the educational services sector. They had unemployment probabilities of 2.3 percent and 2 percent respectively.
Associate professor and Director of the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program Kathryn Martin said that in her 13 years at UIndy, the employment rate for physical therapy graduates has remained at 100 percent. A majority of the students even sign employment contracts prior to graduation, Martin said. She believes this is a result of a growing population of people 65 and older, with hospitals releasing patients earlier in order to cut costs. Toward this end, more physical therapists are needed, according to Martin, to get the patients up and moving, which helps the body perform the basic function of healing.
“They may need home health care. They may need a physical therapist to come in a couple of times a week to see them at home to kind of finish up the job of helping them get stronger, or helping their recovery that five years ago they might have done in a hospital,” Martin said.
As people age, health deteriorates, and according to a study on longevity conducted by Stanford University, the population of people 65 or older will surpass that of those 15 or younger by 2032. This increasing number of older people with more health issues creates a need for more people to care of them.
As for careers in education, Dean of the School of Education Kathryn Moran believes jobs in education are always available because of the constant demand for education. She sees this as promising for UIndy graduates.
“There may be more pressure [in a recession] to make sure kids are going into professions that will get them suitable employment. So we see more emphasis on teaching,” Moran said. “As long as people keep having kids, we’re going to still need teachers.”
According to Moran, people choose a career in education for many reasons, one of them being to help build the next generation.
According to both Martin and Moran, the best aspect of these fields is not their recession-proof nature, but their tendency to help others whether by teaching everything from the ABCs to algebra or helping someone to rehabilitate after an injury.
Martin said that one prerequisite for a high-quality health career professional is to have a passion for helping others.
“To focus on a health-related career simply because the job market is strong is the wrong reason. I think the right reason to focus on a health career is that you love what you do and you really enjoy making a difference in someone’s life,” Martin said. “If you don’t enjoy it, you’re only going to be mediocre at it.”
