In this 1983 episode, Jobman Caravan explores career fields predicted to experience significant growth through the decade. The program focuses on jobs requiring post-secondary education but less than a bachelor’s degree, featuring interviews with professionals in healthcare, technology, legal services, and other emerging fields experiencing high demand.
Healthcare Fields Leading Growth
Dental Hygiene emerged as a particularly promising career, driven by increased emphasis on preventive medicine. Professionals described the role as a “preventive therapist,” requiring strong backgrounds in psychology, sociology, and public health. The field offered flexibility and good employment prospects, though it remained predominantly female despite welcoming male applicants.
Nursing continued showing strong demand across all levels - practical nursing (5 quarters), registered nursing (7 quarters), and baccalaureate programs (4 years). Recruiters wanted “caring persons” with humanistic attitudes and the intellectual ability to complete rigorous programs. The field attracted increasing numbers of mature students returning to work after raising families, offering flexible scheduling across different shifts.
Other Medical Fields experiencing growth included surgical technicians, health records technologists, physical therapists, and speech-language pathologists involved in evaluation, diagnosis, and therapy for communication disorders.
Technology Revolution
The computer field dominated growth predictions, with the Department of Education projecting needs for 500,000 application programmers and 200,000 systems analysts by 1984. Colleges weren’t producing sufficient technicians to fill these gaps.
Computer Technicians handled equipment repairs and installations, requiring 1-2 years post-high school training in electronics or electrical engineering. Application Programmers created software programs, with employers noting that musicians and mechanics often made excellent candidates due to their logical thinking and puzzle-solving abilities.
Legal Services Expansion
Paralegal positions represented emerging opportunities in legal services delivery, requiring 6 months to a year of training. Paralegals could perform most attorney functions except court appearances and legal advice, allowing law firms to offer services at lower rates ($20-35/hour vs. $150-200/hour for attorneys).
The field required strong reading and writing skills, with English majors particularly well-suited. Word processing and office automation were transforming legal practice into a “systems orientation” for completing tasks efficiently.
Service Industry Growth
Travel Agents benefited from increased leisure travel, helping plan vacations, business travel, and group tours while booking flights, hotels, and cruises. Employment Interviewers faced nearly 50% job growth during the 1980s, helping applicants find suitable positions through placement services.
Economic Context and Retraining
The episode noted that one in four workers aged 25-64 held college degrees, compared to one in seven a decade earlier. However, unemployment persisted even among degree holders whose training didn’t match available jobs. Private and public technical schools prospered as retraining became essential.
Automation was eliminating positions like keypunch operators, postal clerks, and telephone operators, while clerical jobs grew 30% between 1972-1980 with projections of 3.6 million additional positions by 1990, though requiring new skills.
