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| Service-oriented: Sam Alalam is a hairdresser at Leeba Salon in Boston. Nicole Hill |
Service work props up US job market
So far this year, the nation has added 815,000 service jobs.
from the July 9, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Efforts to keep workers happy
While many service-sector jobs are low paying, some are finding that employers are looking at them differently in an effort to keep workers happy. That's what's happened to Robert Recio, who was hired two months ago to work at the front desk at the Sheraton New York after spending two months as a security guard at Yankee Stadium.
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The work at the hotel, says Mr. Recio, a marketing major at Monroe College, is much better: He gets longer breaks, the pay and benefits are greater, and the hours are flexible. And they've switched Recio's shift twice at his request. "They work around my hours. They're really good with school and stuff."
Switching jobs within the industry also appears to be easier for picky job candidates. That's been the case for Alex Bertrand, who left Louisville, Ky., after three years of teaching middle school. Last October, he began applying for teaching jobs in New York City. He knew he'd find a position, but he didn't want to end up in a school with a disorganized administration or get stuck teaching "angry and ornery" kids. So he applied to a handful of area schools, and this past April he was hired by Democracy Prep, a year-old Harlem-based charter school.
Getting a teaching job in New York didn't seem like too much of a challenge, says Mr. Bertrand, who has a degree in engineering. He waited with a crowd at the Department of Education headquarters to get fingerprinted, which made it seem like "everyone and their mother is trying to become a teacher."
That could be true. Last month, education and health services saw a nationwide rise of 59,000 jobs, the most of any sector.
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