Next generation career planning: job opportunities and job preparations for Alaska's future workforce.

AuthorAnderson, Tasha
PositionEDUCATION

For individuals planning to enter the workplace, it's important to be aware of what's going on in a business community. While some skills and work traits are universal and timeless--communication, critical thinking, punctuality--others come and go with changing business priorities, cultures, and technology.

According to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development's 20122022 Industry Forecast, the industry projected to have the highest growth in terms of percentage of new jobs is Healthcare and Social Assistance, Public and Private, with a projected 11,247 jobs being created in that ten-year period, a 25 percent change. According to the report, projections for all jobs for the ten-year period show some increase except for federal government jobs, expected to decrease by 9 percent, anywhere from 1 to 297 positions. Local government jobs show the lowest positive rate, projected at 0.2 percent, only forty-one new jobs by 2022. Other industries with high rates of projected growth, in terms of numbers of jobs, are Management of Companies and Enterprises at 19.9 percent, 510 jobs; Mining (including Oil and Gas) at 19.8 percent, 3,374 jobs; Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services at 16.3 percent, 2,458 jobs. The expected growth for all industries is 10.8 percent, or a total of 36,113 new jobs by 2022.

UAA

The University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) campus is part of the U-Med district in Anchorage, which is comprised of UAA, Alaska Pacific University, Providence Alaska Medical Center, and the Alaska Native Medical Center. These two medical facilities are Alaska's only Level II Trauma centers; Providence received this designation in March 2015. For those interested in pursuing a career in an industry which is currently experiencing shortages and only has high expectations of growth, UAA is smack in the middle of Alaska's healthcare community. Last fall the School of Nursing at UAA announced the start-up of its Post Masters Doctor of Nursing Practice program and had applied for candidacy status for the program to be accredited.

Danica Bryant, workforce and career development coordinator at UAA's Career Development Center, says that the Center is aware of the value of the proximity of these two hospitals, and works to connect students not only with these two centers but with Alaska Regional Hospital and other healthcare facilities and clinics, ensuring that students entering the healthcare field have access to job training and...

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