10 Best jobs in the U.S., 2009 Edition

[beachbumflyer]

Just came out the 2009 edition for the 10 best jobs in the U.S. at
CNNMoney.com.
Airline pilot used to be among the top. Now, nowhere to be seen.

[Clandestino]

Not even in the top 100.

It's not a job anymore, it's a joke.

[Bruce Wayne]

"Money ranked the top 50 careers with great pay and growth prospects."


go figure !


Perhaps this should be moved over to the wannabe's forum !!!

[3MTA3]

Perhaps this should be moved over to the wannabe's forum !!!

Perfectly right! It might make them think twice before spending a fortune in training

[ItsAjob]

I don't think there will be many splashing out on a new licence anytime soon; as the market for easy credit has gone.

[Metro man]

Hardly surprising with the constant slide in terms and conditions, poor job security, increasing work hours and diminishing benefits. Pay for your own training, struggle to find a job and then qualify for welfare as a first officer with the money being so bad.

If you know of any companies left that pay for training, have decent conditions and offer a reasonable pension please let us know.

[Squawk7777]

What's frightening me is the outsourcing to regionals like Republic. Most pilots there are completely blinded by their shiny new jet syndrome aka the E190. Let's wait how long this will last.

Republic, taking us all down, one code share at a time.

[411A]

Airline pilot used to be among the top. Now, nowhere to be seen.

Speak for yourself.
I seem to be doing OK, seasonal flying, paid overtime nearly always....no complaints from here.

[Shaka Zulu]

411A just shut up for once in your life and not be so full of yourself. Me, me me and my piloting skills flying a dinosaur.
Yes we all can't be sky gods. No need to rub it in.

[742]

Speak for yourself.
I seem to be doing OK, seasonal flying, paid overtime nearly always....no complaints from here.

411A:

I appreciate your comments on this forum.

But aviation is over. Done. Those of us who enjoy aviation, are good at it and get paid well for it are like dinosaurs in a tar pit. For young pilots/mechanics this is either a labor of love or a big suckers game.

My son is going into medicine and my daughter into engineering. I do not know a single young adult going into aviation. Not one.

Perhaps we will both be on display in some museum in 10 million years.

[tocamak]

Selection Criteria

Airline Pilots jobs probably didn't make it into the top 100 due to the criteria as shown below (from the link posted earlier). In particular the jobs that did not grow during the recession.

How we picked the Best Jobs
260
MONEY and compensation experts PayScale.com started with more than 7,000 jobs and then focused on jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects will grow 10% or more over the next decade and that require at least a bachelor's degree. Using PayScale's proprietary compensation data, we screened out titles with median pay below $65,000 for experienced workers (at least two to seven years of experience in the field, depending on the job) and fewer than 10,000 positions nationwide.

100
Eliminated jobs that did poorly during the recession (based on Conference Board data showing growth in online help-wanted ads in 2009), and grouped jobs with similar responsibilities and skills.

50
Used data from CNNMoney.com and PayScale.com survey in which more than 35,000 workers rated their jobs on quality-of-life factors such as flexibility, stress, and personal satisfaction. Ranked top 50 on current employment, long-term growth, pay, and security (60%); projected openings (15%); and quality-of-life factors (25%). Online package includes data on pay, job growth and quality-of-life factors for the entire top 100, but only the top 50 jobs are ranked.

10
Interviewed industry experts and people in each of the professions to further assess its cyclicality, prospects for mobility, and perks and benefits. Selected the top 10 jobs based on these findings.

As regards the future prospects for young people and particularly :-

My son is going into medicine and my daughter into engineering. I do not know a single young adult going into aviation. Not one

Well certainly in the UK those going into medicine will face the same sort of feedback from their more experienced colleagues i.e. the good old days are gone, it's all run by accountants and managers, just mind your back as they are all out to sue you! If someone were to ask me I would still say there are a lot worse ways to earn a living and virtually guarantee seeing the sun every day whilst those on the ground moan about the dismal winter days. Yes things have changed but they always will, things could never stay the same as in Fate is the Hunter and no one will probably write such a masterpiece about the LHR-EDI Shuttle! There is virtually no career which is the same now as it was in the "good old days" probably not even being a banker! If things are that bad for you then seek pastures new, 411A usually says things which wind me up but at least he is being positive about things here.

[superdash]

Yeah go into medicine that’s a real easy profession...requires hardly any work and you get paid like 200grand a year oh and engineering that’s well easy too think the norm is to be paid 1million pounds and work 3 days per week

Don't be a pilot whatever you do it's really hard work and very boring, you have to live in Timbuktu and only get paid minimum wage..........

I can't think of anything I'd rather do for a living, I get paid well and the career progression is excellent. Every year I will get a pay rise then I can become captain, then move onto bigger aircraft, bigger salary.

How many of the people I went to school with earn as much money or enjoy work as much as I do?? NONE that I know of.

[Metro man]

I like what I do most of the time, every job has its good and bad points. Yes the pay is reasonable.

However I think of what I had to sacrifice in order to get here, the cost of training, years in low paid jobs filling up the logbook, periods of unemployment, having to take a second job to get by while working as a turbo prop captain.

Four years of university and a graduate starting salary seems quite appealing in comparison.

If you can get your training paid for and a decent job then it's worth it, twenty years in the US Airforce then join FEDEX brilliant.

However the reality is getting more like going into tens of thousands of debt getting a job with Ryanair and taking years to break even financially whilst enjoying the respect and working conditions shown by MOL to his employees.

The good days of high pay and benefits, reasonable working conditions and respect from management are drawing to an end if not already over for most.

[KAG]

Supply and demand.
Train less pilot, and see what happen.

[742]

Yeah go into medicine that’s a real easy profession...requires hardly any work and you get paid like 200grand a year oh and engineering that’s well easy too think the norm is to be paid 1million pounds and work 3 days per week

Don't be a pilot whatever you do it's really hard work and very boring, you have to live in Timbuktu and only get paid minimum wage..........

I can't think of anything I'd rather do for a living, I get paid well and the career progression is excellent. Every year I will get a pay rise then I can become captain, then move onto bigger aircraft, bigger salary.

How many of the people I went to school with earn as much money or enjoy work as much as I do?? NONE that I know of.

Aviation does not provide a stable career. It has always been somewhat risky, but the chance of maintaining a reasonable career path while we start families, raise them, move into middle age and then retire has become extraordinarily slim. In practice aviation is no longer a career as much as it is a lottery. You may have better prospects in Europe than we have in the United States at the moment, but the disease is spreading. The employees of United, USAir, Braniff, Eastern, Sabena.... the roll call goes on and on, were at one point as confident as you are now.

Mock my kids all you want, but they have watched me and my associates and they are smart enough to be seeking job skills that are of interest to them and are marketable. And they appear to not be alone, since the pool of students for flight schools in the United States has dried up.

[USav8or]

"...Airline pilot used to be among the top. Now, nowhere to be seen..."

Being an Acorn executive is the new en-vogue profession...

[powerstall]

I agree it's supply and demand. If only there were a lot more airlines.

[beachbumflyer]

With less people willing to become airline pilots due to T&C's I wouldn't be
surprise if there is pilot shortage in a few years, for real this time.

[Anansis]

Happiness in your job is linked to the respect you are given...

How many of the people I went to school with earn as much money or enjoy work as much as I do?? NONE that I know of.

Good for you. I am sincerely happy for you. But I feel that you are in the minority.

There is virtually no career which is the same now as it was in the "good old days"

I agree. But I think that aviation has gone much further down the pan than most careers. I was flabbergasted when I heard that the US Airways captain (a US Air force veteran) who landed in the Hudson River had not had a payrise in ten years (with inflation, no payrise = a paycut).

My son is going into medicine and my daughter into engineering. I do not know a single young adult going into aviation. Not one

I think you have hit the nail on the head. From the day I first sat in the cockpit of a jet flying to Spain as a child (pre 9/11), it was my dream to become an airline pilot. Recently I have done all my research into the profession. I thought that could cope with the lack of job security. I even thought I could even cope with reduced terms and conditions, just as long as I got to fly. In the end however I decided that there has to be a line drawn somewhere and after much soul searching, I am studying to become a lawyer instead.

Being a pilot is no longer respected as much as it ought to be. Money itself is not important, but how much you are paid reflects how much your employer values you. For the majority of you pilots (especially the newbies), little money = little respect. In my opinion there are two reasons for this;

Firstly, the increased automation on the flight deck means that a lot of bean counters in the airlines see you pilots as a unnecessary expense. Some seem to have the mentality that "if, as Airbus suggest, these things can fly themselves, why the hell are we paying TWO guys good money to fly the bloody thing!?" Flight engineers are a thing of the past, are paid first officers going the same way? This is a European biased view (where a lot of newly qualified guys with 200 hours go straight onto heavy jets)- maybe someone can comment on turboprop life in the States?

Secondly, the marketing men who sell seats for £0.01p have devalued aviation. Yes it is wonderful that the loco's have opened up the world of flying to joe public, but it leads to a perception that operating an aircraft is cheap and easy. It isn't. Even today when I see a pilot in an airport I am filled with a strange emotion that I guess is a mixture of awe and envy. I was talking to my housemate about this the other day and he thought it was ridiculous. He sees pilots as over glorified bus drivers, an opinion that I hear is prevalent in the US and is slowly starting to creep in here in the UK too.

I'd rather make it in law, get my PPL and my CPL and fly for the love of it without administrators sucking the love out of it. And I think that's a crying shame because I feel that I (and other potential pilots) could have contributed a lot to this profession.

[USav8or]

Anansis - great synopsis of what an airline pilot's life looks like nowadays.

There are still some bright spots out there, here in the US cargo pilots (primarily FDX & UPS) are still doing ok although they too took some concesions. FDX in the form of company mandated lowering of minimum monthly guarantees (~20-35% overall pay cut) and UPS where some pilots took short term leaves of absence, military LOAs, reduced monthly guarantee, etc. It was all "voluntarily" although the pilots did it just to save the junior pilots from being furloughed; not sure "volunteering" is the right word in that aspect.

Either way, the cargo pilots are doing pretty well especially when compared to some of the "major" airlines here in the US, such as USAirways (Sully's company) where they've lost their pensions, everyone's had their pay slashed numerous times in the last 10 years or so, captains have been displaced to FOs, FOs have been furloughed, etc., etc.

Who knows what the future holds but if the EU aviation market follows the US - it'll probably get much worst before it gets better. As always, you'll find a few exceptions to the rule - SWA, FDX and UPS in the US and Ryanair, Lufthansa, etc. in Europe - but I do wish I was an airline pilot in the 50s when our profession meant something and when we were being compensated accordingly.