By James McNair
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Factory workers might want to assemble some knowledge about medical devices. Coal miners and farm hands might want to dig into courses on computer technology.

OHIO'S FUTURE As Ohio celebrates its bicentennial, The Cincinnati Enquirer will examine where the Buckeye State is headed and analyze the key topics that confront the state. Watch for these reports throughout 2003.

So suggests the job outlook issued recently by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Occupation after occupation, the more service-oriented it is, the more likely that there will be more of those jobs this decade. By the time 2010 arrives, the state will be even more of a service haven than it already is.

It's hardly a secret. Production work has been giving way to professions, service industries, retailing, technology and money-changing for a long time. The state report simply gives further reason for Ohioans to reconsider their job skills and the field they want.

Among the report's findings:

Occupations that tag people as "professionals" are expected to grow 19.9 percent from 2000 to 2010, while production jobs will decline by 0.2 percent.

Michelle Ziegler is having trouble returning to computer programming. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

The seven jobs expected to grow the fastest all fall in the technology category, including applications software programmers and network administrators.

Because of high turnover, the jobs with the most openings this decade will be restaurant workers, cashiers, retail salespeople, laborers and registered nurses.

Jobs requiring at least an associate's degree will increase by 23.1 percent. Those requiring a bachelor's will climb 15 percent; a master's, 19.3 percent; a doctorate, 18.1 percent.

The greater the education, the higher the salary and stabler the livelihood. For instance, bachelor's degree holders had a median salary of $46,300 in 2000 and had a 1.8 percent unemployment rate. Those with just a high school degree had median pay of $28,800 and a 3.5 percent unemployment rate.

"Our best advice," said Larry Less, labor market economist with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, "is that you should get an education beyond the high school level if you want to improve your employment opportunities, your income potential and your unlikelihood of becoming unemployed."

INFOGRAPHIC

• Tech jobs in Ohio

If the outlook is on the mark, degree-requiring jobs in one of the professions, in technology, in the health field and in business or finance are the careers to pursue in Ohio. That doesn't mean that a machine operator with a high school degree and a ton of experience should pack it in and go to college. Through on-the-job training, production workers are becoming technology workers, even as manufacturing jobs decline in number.

"Instead of a machinist doing something manually, he'll be using a computerized, numerically controlled machine tool, where they program the piece of equipment to produce a part," Mr. Less said. "That partly explains the decline in manufacturing employment."

The irony of the state's job outlook is that while many occupations are considered sure bets this decade, many people in those occupations wonder where the openings are. That's especially true in technology, where experienced programmers and computer network experts are beating the bushes for a job.

Take Michelle Ziegler, a 40-something computer systems engineer with 20 years of experience.

On paper, Ms. Ziegler would appear to be just the kind of employee a technology company could use. She spent 12 years with General Electric Aircraft Engines in several engineering capacities and seven with Structural Dynamics Research Corp. before the Milford company was bought by EDS in 2001. While at SDRC, she traveled to Asia four times a year to train employees of companies such as Nissan and Daewoo in the use of SDRC's product data management software.

Her salary? $84,000 a year.

Then came an ill-fated foray into a new occupation. In mid-2000, Ms. Ziegler became a stockbroker - after the onset of the current bear market. She lasted a year, then collected unemployment. In spite of numerous job applications to tech companies, 10 personal interviews, help from a headhunter and a listing in Monster.com, Ms. Ziegler today sells furniture for a living. She is also trying to sell her home to pay her son's college tuition.

"I want to go back to the computer field. That's my expertise," said Ms. Ziegler, who has a master's degree and knows a host of programming languages in addition to her native Korean. "It's sad that I can't contribute my ability to society. This is the hardest time I have ever had in my whole life."

While she and other technology veterans await a rebound in tech spending, people are getting in at the low end of the field.

Many are passing through institutions such as Cincinnati State Technical and Community College. Most of its students, said spokeswoman Michele Imhoff, graduate with two-year degrees in one branch of engineering or another, be it information, health or environmental. The average graduate is 26 years old.

"These programs are geared toward what hospitals and manufacturing companies need," she said. "We see people who've made a complete switch from what they've been doing. We may have people who were in entry-level hospital jobs like attending. We'll start them in a program to certify them as nurses or surgical technicians."

Cincinnati State offers a co-op program, which alternates students from campus to workplace from one term to the next. Employers such as Procter & Gamble, Cinergy, Anthem, Convergys, GE, Kroger and the hospitals in the Greater Cincinnati Health Alliance participate and are on the school's advisory boards, Ms. Imhoff said. Working so closely with employers, she said, ensures the curriculum adheres to work place needs.

Cincinnati State's program jibes nicely with the Ohio jobs forecast. Following the technology jobs atop the fastest-growing occupations are health-related jobs. Medical assistants, physician assistants, occupational therapy aides, mental health and substance abuse social workers, home health aides, pharmacy technicians and seven other health occupations are all expected to grow more than 30 percent between 2000 and 2010.

Some of those jobs are downright attractive. A physician's assistant earned an average of $34.82 an hour in 2001. That's higher than any of the technology jobs.

E-mail jmcnair@enquirer.com.