Mar 07, 2006 23:59
Y'know what I read this morning was one of the "slowest growth" (i.e., WAAAAAY more jobs available than people entering the field, and forecasted huge retirement rates for current positionholders?) Librarians.Studies have shown that librarians are expected to exit the profession en masse in coming years. The American Library Association Web site quotes statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau indicating that more than one-quarter of all librarians will reach the age of 65 by 2009. A study published in the Library Journal found that 40 percent of library directors would retire by that same year.
In addition to the librarians expected to retire within the next decade, interest in the profession is waning among younger workers, according to the BLS. The situation is particularly dire for colleges and universities, which report the greatest difficulty in hiring librarians due to lower pay.
Graduates of library programs in 2004 reported an average starting salary of more than $39,000, an increase of nearly 3 percent over the previous year. The median salary for librarians is nearly $47,000, according to the BLS.
It takes a two-year masters. Something in that tempts me, but it'd just be WAY too cliche if I ended up being a librarian. And it's basically an IT-field now, anyway, which makes me sniffly-sad. But librarian-shortage saddens me, too!