ALBANY — While national trends point to high-tech jobs as those with the most growth, closer to home patient care, keeping trucks and cars rolling, and the building industry account for the most demand for workers.
The hottest jobs identified by Albany Technical College included nurse, nurse aides, commercial truck drivers, automotive and diesel mechanics, and construction workers.
Concern about a future shortage of nursing has been on the radar for a couple of decades, but COVID-19 had a profound impact on the demand in health care, Lisa Stephens, the college’s dean of business/health care/technology, said.
“There is definitely a national crisis, but a local one as well,” she noted. “We have been thinking outside the box in meeting the increased need for the pandemic. We have never seen anything like this before.”
Albany Tech kept operating during the pandemic, moving to online instruction, as did other educational institutions. The instructional time for students in areas including nurses and nurse aides was shortened.
“We did have to resort to some innovative ways to meet those demands,” Stephens said. “We shortened (course) times, making them a little more intense. We used innovative ways to teach in the virtual environment.
“I think the biggest thing for us is we had no interruption in learning. We modified and transitioned online for a lot of instructional delivery.”
The starting salaries for nurses have been increased recently at area hospitals, so Stephens could not give a current figure, but she pointed out that pre-pandemic, those salaries started at between $50,000 and $60,000 a year.
Nurse aides are currently starting out at $12 to $13 an hour.
The demand has stretched across all sectors of nursing, from registered nurses to licensed practical nurses and nurse aides.
“They’re in demand like I’ve never seen before,” Stephens said. “LPNs and nurse aides, particularly working in long-term (care) facilities, which were hit really hard at first” by the pandemic.
The college has ramped up its efforts to train more drivers for big rigs and to turn out more diesel technicians and mechanics in recent years.
“There are a group of jobs the executive branch of the governor’s office has identified as great jobs in Georgia: allied health, logistical support and transportation, manufacturing support and information technology,” Albany Tech President Anthony Parker said “We believe everything we do is important, but if we focus on these areas, we’ll be likely to do our part to keep Georgia as a great place to work and southwest Georgia as a great place to work and live.”
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