February 7, 2019

Don't Move to Indiana To Become a Prosthodontist

I really shouldn't have to tell both of the Prosthodontists in the nation who are currently looking for a job but you probably won't find a job if you drop everything and move to Indiana.   Also I don't know what a Prosthodontist is so let me pause and go look that up.    Turns out that a prosthodontist is a specialization in dentistry that handles restoration of teeth or dentures.

Why am I talking about prosthodontists in Indiana?   

According to this article "The fastest-growing job in each U.S. state" from Yahoo Finance, the fastest growing job in Indiana is prosthodontist.     You can follow that link to see their nice pretty graphic showing the (alleged) fastest growing job per state.    Reading that raised a red alert in my BS radar.      I figured if I've never even heard of an occupation its probably unlikely that its a new boom job.    In fact  all I had to do was click on the source cited " projections from the government-backed Projections Managing Partnership (PMP)" to see that there are currently 0 prosthodontists in Indiana and the projection is for there to be 10.      I do see that going from nothing to 10 is pretty good growth but 10 jobs is nothing.        I don't know how the Yahoo finance articles authors decided that this +10 job growth ranked as the fastest growing job for the state.    There are numerous jobs for Indiana projected to have higher net job increases and high % increases.   The % increase for prosthodontists is actually listed as 0.    The job numbers go from 0 to 10 so theres no valid way to express % increase.   Yet for some reason the Yahoo folks decided this change from 0 to 10 was the biggest increase. 

Two ways of looking at the fastest growing jobs are to look at the % increase or the net increase.   A job that goes from 50 to 75 has a 50% increase and a 25 net increase.     

Pulling the data from the Projections Management website for the 2017 to 2019 projections for Indiana we get :

High % growth jobs for Indiana :

OccupationName Base Proj Change PercentChange
Artists and Related Workers, All Other 50 60 10 20
Helpers--Painters, Paperhangers, Plasterers, and Stucco Masons 50 60 10 20
Cartographers and Photogrammetrists 100 110 10 10
Set and Exhibit Designers 100 110 10 10
Archivists 120 130 10 8.3
Elevator Installers and Repairers 120 130 10 8.3

Jobs with high net job increases for Indiana: 

OccupationName Base Proj Change PercentChange
Combined Food Preparation and Serving Workers, Including Fast Food 83720 85620 1900 2.3
Registered Nurses 65480 67330 1850 2.8
Team Assemblers 82420 83850 1430 1.7
Personal Care Aides 29230 30530 1300 4.4
Waiters and Waitresses 51740 53030 1290 2.5

Clearly there are a LOT lot more jobs in food prep, nursing, personal care, than there are in the "boom" 20% growth jobs such as painters helpers.   But if you only look at the % increase then you're likely to chase a job with very few actual openings. 

Oh, also don't move to Idaho to be an 'exhibit designer'.   The Yahoo finance analysis did the exact same thing for that job in that state and decided that going from 0 exhibit designer jobs to 10 jobs is the fastest growing occupation for Idaho.

--

This article may contain referral links which pay this site a commission for purchases made at the sites.

Blog Widget by LinkWithin