Changes Abound In The Medical Fields
Humphreys rising personal incomes also will result in a greater demand for such elective medical procedures as cosmetic surgery involving medical assistant employment. "Obviously, it (medical care) is a necessity, but people tend to consume more as they become better off," he said. Humphreys said more tasks will be performed by assistants rather than physicians to help hold down medical costs of medical assistant employment.
Within the medical field, the biggest growth will be among therapists and registered nurses, according to Humphreys. Another growth occupation will be corrections officers, which Humphreys said would increase by 2.9 percent a year. He said growing prison populations are forcing more construction and expansion.
"Correctional officers usually keep their jobs during economic downturns," he said.
The aging population will shrink the pool of people available for such jobs as bartenders and waitresses, Humphreys said, predicting that employers will be forced to offer better pay and conditions for those positions. Among the employment losers are electronics assemblers, a job Humphreys predicted will decline 4.6 percent a year in 2002. Such jobs will be increasingly done by automation, he said. "Many assembly and labor type opportunities will suffer because of mechanization." Other big losers, according to Humphreys, include farm workers (down 1.5 percent), textile machine operators (down 0.9 percent) and meter readers (down 0.7 percent). Registered nurse Cindy Keen loved the parts of her job at City of Hope National Medical Center that had nothing to do with taking blood or giving medication. The parts such as knowing how to take a 6-year-old cancer patient's mind off the tumor that left her tiny stomach swollen by playing her favorite video or offering her a favorite food. Keen, who lost her job following a contentious two-week strike in June, worries that she won't find another nursing job like that. At worst, she fears, she will find no work at all. In a dramatic change from six years ago, when a severe nursing shortage caused nationwide panic, Keen and 46 other nurses from the Duarte hospital whose jobs were filled by replacements are struggling to find steady work. These nurses' dilemma reflects a nationwide downturn in the nursing industry, caused by twin factors: the recession and a movement by hospitals toward hiring less-educated staffs, including licensed vocational nurses and unlicensed assistants, said Arthur A. Sponseller, a senior vice president of the Hospital Council of Southern California.
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