The 10 Hardest Jobs To Fill In America | Hacker News Reader

The 10 Hardest Jobs To Fill In America

forbes.com

22 pointstomh34 comments

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For those that can't be bothered going through the photo slideshow, here they are:

Engineer

Nurse

Skilled Trades

Teacher

Sales Representative

Technician

Truck Driver

Information Technology Staff

Laborer

Machinist or Machine Operator

Thanks!

"Photo-slide shows" on the web need to die, anytime I see one, I never click on it. These ad-spam on these things is nearing the annoyance levels of most porn sites..

I've been doing research on the nursing shortage in the US this past week.

There are currently 2.9 million licensed nurses nationwide, and we're currently 150k nurses short. By 2020, the government predicts a nursing shortage of 500k to 800k nurses due to retirements, aging baby boomers and a shortage of nursing instructors.

Sales Rep? Are they kidding? Are monkeys at the Zoo not reproducing during the "recession?"

The job titles leave a lot to be desired.

There are many types of engineers, many subjects to teach, countless things to sell, etc etc.

Not to mention packaged in a needlessly complex UI of distracting photos. The Driver page says "specifically truck drivers" and then shows a photo of a limo.

the positions are hard to fill because employers refuse to raise wages to a level that attracts the proper number of applicants. SXD

The guy sitting next to me has a Masters in structural engendering from MIT. Yet, he is currently doing statics work, because it's better pay for less effort.

He has friends who went into investment banking and are making 7 figures yet the idea of 100k right out of school is supposed to be a great job. The real choice in his mind was extreme pay for 90 hour work weeks or reasonable pay for a 9-5. And Engineering is neither of those.

I think picking statics work over structural engendering was the right choice :-)

Ow.

employers refuse to raise wages because consumers do not derive enough value from the work to pay higher prices

If the employers came out and admitted as much, I'd be satisfied. However, many of these employers go to congress to complain about a shortage of labor in these fields.

...to try to remove an artificial restriction on applicants who would appreciate the wages they can profitably offer.

sure, but isn't that the case for all fields, not just the ones where a supposed labor shortage exists? How is nursing or software development any different from working on an assembly line, cutting hair or mowing lawns? Hard to believe that we couldn't bring hundreds of thousands of new workers to the US in these fields - the difference is that congress hasn't been convinced that a labor shortage exists.

So in this case, my objection that we're enforcing these "artifical restrictions" very unevenly, based on whether congress declares a "labor shortage" in a particular field.

And ultimately, the only way to truly remove the "Artifical restrictions" you're talking about would be unlimited immigration on a global scale. I actually love the idea as a long term goal for humanity, but for the moment, I think it would be insane for the US to pursue open borders, and even more so if the rest of the world doesn't reciprocate.

Hard to believe that we couldn't bring hundreds of thousands of new workers to the US in these fields - the difference is that congress hasn't been convinced that a labor shortage exists.

I think the difference is that there are enough people who can do some jobs who are willing to work for what other people are willing to pay, so there's no perceived need for people to try to get more. On mowing lawns, though, perhaps you aren't aware that in many places in the US, lawns are mowed primarily by immigrants who are willing to accept a lower wage than legal citizens would be (since they risk deportation if they complain about not getting minimum wage, or think they do).

The real problem is that there's no way to know what the right answers are once you start trying to manage the economy rather than letting it go. Each attempt to solve a problem with force causes other problems, which are then ripe for solving with more force, but at each stage, the problems that you're going to cause are mostly invisible compared to the problem you're solving.

It's pretty impressive that the US culture and governmental structure has resisted this trend as well and as long as it has, but at some point, things are going to go very badly more quickly than most people who haven't experienced such a thing can imagine. We can all hope that isn't soon. :)

Of course I'm aware that lawns are mowed by low-paid immigrants in many parts of the country! The key is that the government didn't create a special visa for lawn mowers based on a perceived (perhaps fabricated) shortage.

the government has created a visa for migratory crop picking, though.

Crop picking (in some cases) takes skill and attention to detail that lawn mowing mostly doesn't. Some crops, like tomatoes, are very easily damaged if the picker isn't religiously careful. I think it's more in line with the other jobs in being not worth what employers want to pay for enough Americans to satisfy demand.

Another possibility, though, is that lawn mowing has no giant corporations, and hence no industry-wide employer lobby to push for visa programs.

allowing large influxes of low IQ people is detrimental to a socialist economy since producers have to pony up for each one. In a capitalist economy where people are expected to pull their own weight, sure it would work.

That's a nice thought but in reality it's not the way scarcity works in an economy.

How much you pay an employee has only a tangential relation to the value that employee produces for its customers (both internal and external).

Only so far as it could contribute to a cost structure that could lead to a rev model that a consumer doesn't find value in. (COULD being operative because many businesses have a few of these top-heavy roles that are absorbed elsewhere).

If you can't innovate your way out of it, and you can't scale your way out of it, you have no choice but to raise prices. If that breaks the camels back, so to speak, we have a name for that: It's called a poor business model.

This applies to materials and services as well. Scarcity in Economics 101.

Man, I hope you never wind up in a hospital with your nurse reading that comment.

I would have to agree with this comment, my significant other is a nurse and she routinely tells me all the stresses that come with her profession. Think of what a doctor or a pharmacist does, except on a more personal level with the patient. That's the nurse. The nurse is the last line of defense when it comes to misdiagnosis and prescriptions, and in some cases needs to know more than both the doctor and pharmacist. Shouldn't that afford more value than what they are currently paid?

My brother is a mechanical engineer and certified Professional Engineer with 17 years of solid experience. He is concerned about losing his job because of the poor economy. The article leads me to wonder why.

congratulations! what a pointless article? it manages to cover nigh on EVERY type of job there is....

It should be pointed out that Engineering education is broken. For some reason they take it as a point of pride that 50% of engineering students drop out (or fail) in the first year. To my opinion, eating your young is something to be ashamed of. No wonder there's a lack of work force if they're creating this huge obstacle to success.

As for salary, a good Engineer can be making over 100,000 five years out of school. It's not f&k you* money, but it's nothing to shrug off.

even at the right wages there is likely little incentive to continue working in these fields. employers need to do a better job of shielding all the BS out of the system and creating a welcoming environment.

Professional journalist.

Any there any left?

I like how the article skims over the fact that teachers are underpaid.

Actually, one of the major problems in filling teaching jobs in the USA is the hiring process itself. If schools organized their hiring processes better, they could create a pool of qualified teachers looking for a job. As it happens, it's very difficult to navigate the job search and hiring processes at individual schools. The result: a lot of out of work teachers, and a lot of open positions for teachers.

What? No. It's quite easy for teachers to locate a school that's looking for them. The state teacher's union usually has a website listing jobs and everyone just uses that one single website.

Where? My brother is a high school teacher and since he's got a math and science background he practically gets hired sight unseen.

You're basing this on what? I'll assume "romantic fantasy" since private school teachers, hired through the free market, evidently get paid less (though the data is murky).

Great teachers are often willing to sacrifice pay for the ability to teach at a great school, to be allowed to teach to the best of their abilities, to be able to hold their students to a higher standard.

In the UK we often hear of nurses and firemen being underpaid, and regardless of the inherent virtue of those jobs (such as it is) the fact is, both are oversubscribed.

The only true sign a job is underpaid is that it's impossible to recruit anyone to do it.

I agree with you on the fireman, but you are the first person in the UK that says they more than enough nurses. I do know there are different type of nurses though. My grandmother is a semi-retired CPN (think private nurse). She prefers it this way because she chooses when to work and gets paid good money for the few hours she does do. Washing the backside of old people can be pretty damn numbing after a while. But she did put 4 daughters through college this way.

My aunt was an ER nurse who moved into private practice (plastic surgery scrub nurse). Her former hospital calls her on occassion and ups the compensation. I figure if you have to call old employees and promise more money than that is a sign someone is underpaid.

Note, a scrub nurse requires a MS.N. and certs out the wazoo. Those are hard to come by because there aren't enough teachers.

But there are - it's all over the news, newly qualified nurses and midwives can't find jobs:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7304537.stm

High unemployment (despite the wider economy - the BBC has stories like this going back to 2003) and low wages is classic oversupply.

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