If you’ve been complaining about your miserable job for so long that your mother, your personal trainer and even the bartender are sending you job alerts on a daily basis, now may be the time to stop whining, update your resume and get a new gig.
With the unemployment rate the lowest it has been in years, you’ve got a good shot at landing a new job — and perhaps even a raise. “If you’re in the right field, it’s a job seeker’s market,” says Daniel Culbertson, an economist at job-search site Indeed.
But what kind of jobs are we talking about? We looked at data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, New York City Economic Development Corporation, Indeed and Glassdoor, then cross-checked it with recruiters. Here are the hottest fields of 2017.
Hospitality is booming
Travel and tourism is expected to bring a record 61.8 million visitors to New York City this year, most of whom will need a place to stay. And while it takes everyone from bellboys to housekeepers to keep guests happy, managers who are savvy enough to run boutique hotels are in short supply.
“The demand for general managers [and] directors of finance, as well as food and beverage managers is incredibly high,” says Frank Speranza, president of Hospitality Talent Scouts, noting that most of these jobs pay six figures.
And with hotels like Marriott International’s Moxy, Ian Schrager’s Public, 1 Hotel’s Brooklyn Bridge and more than 150 others expected to open this year, job growth in this sector isn’t likely to slow.
Good news for geeks
If you’re up to date on the latest technologies, you won’t have to look far to find a job, according to Erik Grimmelmann, president of the NY Tech Alliance. While younger tech firms don’t typically hire hundreds of workers at once, the city is home to more than 1,000 of them, most of which are seeking talent. Among them are Catchpoint Systems, Contently and xAD. Grimmelmann says that nearly everyone who takes the stage to showcase their demos at the monthly sold-out NY Tech Meetup announces that they’re hiring.
Management consultants in demand
Businesses began to go global at around the same time the Great Recession hit, so many companies didn’t go whole hog on the phenomenon early on. They’re making up for it now, according to Scott Dobroski, a career-trends analyst at job site Glassdoor.
David Kaufman, co-founder of management consultancy Acquis in Tribeca, says his company has almost doubled in size in what he calls an “aggressive market.” People who earned their stripes advising companies in process management, project management and change management make strong candidates for roles in this field. But that won’t be enough if you want to work at Acquis, says Kaufman. “Though strong analytical skills are a must, you must also have collaborative, people-first soft skills.”
Insightful data workers
While data-scientist roles were all the rage a few years ago, the ratio of applicants to jobs finally seems to be manageable. What companies are looking for now is data handling and analytical skills from people in all career tracks. “Take any profession and add data handling skills to it, and you’ve got an edge,” says Dobroski.
Rick Aronstein, a vice president at recruitment firm AC Lion, says that brushing up on things like pivot tables and SQL (a programming language) is a good idea for anyone looking for work. But the market is especially good for mathematical and statistics wizards. “A 27-year-old with good SQL skills can command a salary of $100K,” he says.
Media and marketing 2.0
Media, marketing and advertising are all going digital, and that’s opening the aperture for new types of workers in these fields. Not only are there interesting job titles like “storyteller,” but there is also an uptick in demand for artists, cartoonists and social strategists in these fields, says Mike Doyle, director of public relations agency Ketchum’s New York office. Those who know how to dig into data to discover how people can be entertained and influenced are highly sought after, according to Aronstein.