Is Global Warming Good for US Jobs?

There is little disagreement about whether global warming happening, only some, like Gov. Sarah Palin, question whether it is caused by people. Beyond that fight, there is another debate: what could be the effect of these environmental factors on jobs?

While "green collar jobs" were overshadowed during the general election by the financial meltdown, they remain a top component of President-elect Obama's energy plan, with predictions of 5,000,000 new jobs. Could the green sector be that important to our future economy?

According to a report on CNN.com, the effect of environmental factors on jobs could be an employment boom, or bust. The Apollo Institute, an organization that wants a government renewable energy project, predicts three million new green jobs over the next ten years. However, the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California Berkeley expects closer to one million new jobs by 2020.

Could your salary weather the effect of environmental factors on jobs?  Find out with PayScale's full salary survey.

Career Change at Middle Age

"Career change at middle age." Just the words seem daunting, but in our ever-changing job market and the current economic downturn, more and more people are switching careers, some by choice, and others out of economic necessity.

One common route to a career change is further education. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2006 employees with a graduate or professional degree earned an average salary of $80K, while those with bachelor's degrees earned an average of $55K; that's a big difference in pay. If you're interested in heading back to school, check out online degree programs in the PayScale Education Center.

Managing a career change at middle age was a topic on money.cnn.com, which examined costs of going to graduate school in middle age. The article cited numbers from the Council of Graduate Schools: $22K a year for a public university and $34,100 at a private school. It also stated that the average debt for most students is $37K. With that in mind, does pursuing a degree to make career change at middle age make sense?

How would a new degree affect your salary?  Find out with the PayScale Salary Calculator.

Telecommuting From Home Success Stories

Csmonitor.com devoted an entire article to telecommuting from home success stories. In the age of Blackberry, Skype, e-mail and instant messaging, it is becoming more common for businesses to allow employees to telecommute from home, or even the local coffee shop. I touched on this in my previous post about legitimate work at home jobs. 

Exactly how many people are working in their PJs? WorldatWork, a national organization of HR professionals, says that around 28 million Americans are working from home at least one day per month, and that number could reach 100 million by 2010. Which jobs were included in these telecommuting from home success stories?  Keep reading!

How does your salary compare to telecommuting from home success stories?  Find out with the PayScale Salary Calculator. You can also use the PayScale Cost of Living Calculator to see how much you would need to make to maintain your current standard of living in a different city. 

College Salary Report: Why No Advanced Degrees?

In my last post, University Graduate Salaries: Which Schools Payoff?, I discussed the methodology behind PayScale's College Salary Report: Best Colleges & Degrees.

Advanced degrees medicine, and, to a lesser extent, in law, business, and other fields, can increase a bachelor's degree graduate's future earnings by opening up high paying jobs that are not otherwise accessible.

We left graduates who earn advanced degrees out when calculating the average salaries used to compare schools and degrees. Why? I'll look at the answer in this post.

Are you being paid like an employee with a doctorate in Medicine, or in English? Use the PayScale Salary Calculator to discover whether that advanced degree means more pay in your current career, or whether you should look for a new one.

University Graduate Salaries: Which Schools Payoff?

PayScale just released a College Salary Report: Best Colleges & Degrees. With my able associate Erica Sanders, I had a great time digging through our extensive data to understand whether graduates of different schools have different long-term salaries.

What makes our data so unique is that we have the jobs people are doing now - 5, 10, 20 or more years after they attended their undergraduate institution - and what these graduates are being paid now.

There are other surveys that track recent graduate salaries, and we can do that too. (See my post on Starting Salaries for College Grads.) We also have previously mined our college data for March Madness (Alumni Salaries vs. NCAA Championships), to mixed success in predicting the outcome of the Men's basketball tournament. :-)

In this post, I'll look at our College Salary Report - Best Colleges and Degrees methodology, what the different salaries mean, and apologize to Temple University, Weber State University, and Claremont McKenna College for not including them in our report :-)

College degree or not, are you earning as much as you could? Use the PayScale Salary Calculator to discover what employees like you are earning.

Jobs with Good Vacation Plans

For some folks, time off from work can be just as important as salary. Fortunately, there are careers that allow you to take more time off than the average Joe who might get 2 weeks.  In fact, some careers offer two to three months off. According to an article on Yahoo, jobs with good vacation plans are out there, you just need to know where to look.

However, increased free time often comes with increased risk. If your idea of a fun vacation is being paid, and having a job to come back to, some of these options may not be for you.

How does your salary compare to jobs with good vacation plans? Find out with PayScale's full salary survey.

Setting Pastor Salaries and Pastor Compensation

The stereotype of the televangelist with six cars and seven houses has pretty much faded away. When it comes to setting pastor salaries these days, BaptistStandard.com reports that the national average pastor compensation is $77,096.

This average comes from The Compensation Handbook for Church Staff an "industry" survey of compensation. This average is significantly higher than the PayScale median salary of $56,000 for Senior Pastors.

As we will see, the difference is both in the definition of compensation and the scope of responsibility. It never is just about the job title :-)

How does your salary compare to the average pastor compensation?  Find out with our salary calculator.

Legitimate Work at Home Jobs: Work at Home Internet Jobs

We've all heard of outsourcing, but lately that trend is reversing somewhat, creating new legitimate work at home jobs in the U.S., according to an article on CSMonitor.com. These work at home internet jobs are called "home-based customer service agents." When they clock in for work, their phones ring at home; they make reservations, take customer orders, check on deliveries and answer questions.

There are reportedly 110,000 work at home customer service jobs in the U.S., and 80% of these work at home internet jobs are staffed by women. IDC, a market research company in Framingham, Mass, told CSmonitor.com that these legitimate work at home jobs are "expected to triple to 328,000 by 2010."  So how do you find these legitimate work at home jobs?  Keep reading!

How does your salary compare to legitimate work at home jobs?  Find out by taking PayScale's full salary survey.

Advice on Jobs That Don't Require a College Degree

In previous posts, I have written about jobs that don't require a 4-year college degree. Some posts generated more comments than others - UPS, love it or hate it :-)

One reader wrote a thoughtful commentary on a post he saw on our partner, AOL.

Breaking with my usual pontificating, I am turning this post over this reader. "Jim" followed a path to success that did not include college. He makes a strong case for considering trades instead of college for long-term financial success.

I have changed a few unimportant details (like his name) to make Jim's comments anonymous, but otherwise the point of view is his.

Wondering if, college or not, you are being paid what your worth in the market? Find out with our salary survey.

Employee Job Satisfaction Statistics

Are you satisfied with your job?  Do you ever wonder who is?  According to employee job satisfaction statistics reported on LiveScience.com, those in the clergy, firefighters and other folks in helping professions are the most satisfied. These were the results of national job satisfaction studies conducted by the General Social Survey (GSS) at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

This report of employee job satisfaction statistics was based on interviews with 27,000 Americans. In the study, researchers asked about job satisfaction and general happiness. According to Tom Smith, director of the GSS, “Work occupies a large part of each worker’s day, is one’s main source of social standing, helps to define who a person is and affects one’s health both physically and mentally.”

Does your salary reflect your happiness?  Find out with our full salary survey.