This is a very unscientific analysis of recent job listings on Portland Craig’s List based on 1) copying and pasting listings into Wordle and seeing what trended to the top and 2) some verification via searching for terms in Craig’s List.
I’m sure I drastically overrepresented something here and underrepresented something else. But this might give you a general idea:
The top ten most “in demand” jobs are, in no particular order:
Dental Assistant Medical Assistant Caregiver Registered Nurse Physical Therapist Office/Admin Assistant/Reception/Secretary Web developer Mechanic Call center worker/telemarketer Cook
Based on SimplyHired’s information, Tualatin has the most jobs in the area, followed by Lake Oswego, Tigard, Beaverton, Portland, Vancouver and Hillsboro (in that order), and the companies with the most jobs in the area are:
Home Depot Intel Kaiser Permanente Medical Connections Providence JP Morgan Wells Fargo Wal-Mart
Please keep in mind that these types of articles are not very useful. I put this together together out of curiosity.
Update: Added Lake Oswego to the list, with more jobs than Beaverton.
Update 2: Added Physical Therapist and dropped Nonprofit Director. See comments for details.
Update 3: Updated the city list again. Forgot Tigard and Vancouver. Going to leave it alone for now.
March 4, 2009 at 3:54 pm
For those going from education to employment, it seems trade school is covering these jobs better than other forms of higher education. PCC (my college experience) offers most of the ‘in demand’ careers, and on a single campus.
March 4, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Also remember: just because there’s a big demand for these jobs doesn’t mean there’s not an even bigger supply of people to do them. There is not necessarily a shortage of cooks or web developers or whatever.
There may be shortages in other areas where fewer people are needed (in raw numbers) but even fewer people are qualified to do those jobs.
March 4, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Indeed and SimplyHired have many more listings for Physical Therapists than Craig’s List – in fact, that position would appear to be in the greatest demand based on those two sites. They also have more listings for electrical and mechanical engineers, and FAR fewer for nonprofit directors. I’m updating the post accordingly.
March 4, 2009 at 11:37 pm
OK, I spaced on Wilsonville and Clackamas too. Turns out they are the top 2, at least according to SimplyHired. But I’m done updating this.
March 18, 2009 at 6:07 pm
You could not pay me to do any of those things in Tualatin.