Thoughts on Employment Niches

[jennipurrr]

This morning I started thinking about my (and DH's) path in employment. Last year we both took new positions and have been happy with the change. However, I am always rolling around the worst case scenarios in my head and we both have gotten ourselves into somewhat niche positions. I am trying to determine if this is a good or bad thing...not sure if it even matters since we are both quite content and have lots to learn in our new jobs.

In the beginning of our careers (about 10 years ago) our skills were transferable across most industries but as we have progressed we have developed very niche skills. DH's has a background as a programmer but his specific role with this specific system is only found at larger colleges and universities. I guess what got me started thinking about this is he was at a planning meeting for a regional conference and the smaller schools didn't have his role at all. My position is only found at larger colleges and universities or very large nonprofits.

If either of us had to seek new employment then we would not be able to do so locally (community of about 100,000 people) without taking a big step down pay and responsibility wise and/or likely end up doing something completely different. However, if ever we wanted to venture on somewhere else most metro areas would possibly have a home for us as both of our fields are in demand.

Has anyone had a job track that is similar? I suppose I shouldn't have this nebulous worry but I was wondering if anyone had good/bad experiences with it?

[kitten]

Yes, this is our situation too. We're both disenchanted with our work situations, and have winnowed our skills down to a fine point - (we're both in the same media-related field). We're great at what we do, but the demand for what we do has lessened drastically over the years since we've been married.

So - little to no chance of finding well-compensated work in our field in this city. In order to get out of our job situations, we'd either have to start over in a totally new field in our town (not likely, since we couldn't afford to live here on lesser pay), or move to another city. But the jobs availabe in our field are few and far between, even taking the entire nation into account.

A third option would be to move to a place where the cost of living is less, and just work in a bookstore or something. We thought about that during trips we've taken to the Oregon coast. But the little towns on the coast are kind of scary - meth is a problem, and a lot of people look unemployed, unhappy and on the verge of going clocktower, lol!

So yeah, just commiserating. We don't know what we're going to do! It sucks!

[SteveinMN]

Not me, but a friend of mine. Very highly qualified engineer in a particular area of specialized electronics. Very well compensated. But capable at working at maybe four companies here in the Twin Cities and she's already worked at three of them. It's not the kind of job where you can keep moving around to get ahead. And she is at the mercy of companies merging or moving tech headquarters, etc. Her next big move would be to management, leaving the technical stuff behind. She's aware she's a little stuck. It's a much happier "stuck" than, say, working without even a high-school education. But she is somewhat stuck just the same.

[iris lily]

I've always been niche and always expected to move across states to equal or better my job opportunities. It's not the worst thing in the world. It's tough when both of you have that problem, though.

[jennipurrr]

Iris I think you hit my nervousness on the head...since there are two of us any change would have to be perfectly synchronized. For now, all is going along swimmingly and no plans to change/move/etc but you never know. I guess it is a good think to remember when keeping the financial house in order.

[iris lily]

Iris I think you hit my nervousness on the head...since there are two of us any change would have to be perfectly synchronized. For now, all is going along swimmingly and no plans to change/move/etc but you never know. I guess it is a good think to remember when keeping the financial house in order.

Well, traditionally, that has been "big job/little job" unions where partner A had the big earning job that was niche and the family moved for that Big job, and partner B had the job that earned at a lower rate of pay and could go into the general work force wherever they moved. Even before this current economic downturn it was very tough for 2 people to get big paying niche jobs. Those situations are what caused long distance marriages.

Occasionally there is a fluke. One couple we knew in our neighborhood moved here from New Zealand. He was a specialist in micronesian primitive art and he took a job at the St. Louis Art Museum. She did something in botany, but it was high enough level for her to get a job at the Missouri Botanical Gardens where she went off to China on plant collecting expeditions. Now THOSE are specialized jobs.


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[AmeliaJane]

I'm in the same situation, and I ended up moving halfway across the country, from a city I loved, to the ONE situation where I both have a job in my specialized area and have family nearby. Before I moved, I looked locally for jobs in and out of my field for two years and couldn't find anything (needed a change due to issues at my previous workplace.) In the previous job before that, I was one of several casualties of a layoff, and had to move cross-country because there were no local jobs. I really like what I do, so my strategy has been 1) to accept that living situations are temporary, 2) have a hell of an emergency fund, and 3) keep myself flexible in terms of living situations (sticking with rentals so I can make a change quickly if needed). I like my job enough to make those decisions, but I will admit I am single and have more flexibility. I have a friend in my field with a husband, child, and property they couldn't sell, and the only thing that saved her after a layoff was being near a major metro that is one of the centers of our field of work...and she has a terrible commute as it is. For me, I've done fine with it, but it was a really hard realization that I couldn't have both the city I loved, and the job I loved.

I have read that people are moving less than they used to (which is interesting, transportation and communications are so much better than they used to be.) People are more likely to find an area that suits them and try to shape the job situation to suit instead of following their work--I'm sure partly because it is so hard to relocate two careers. Due to my work I interact with a lot of women of a previous generation whose husbands worked for the big national corporations. They talk about following their husbands from transfer to transfer in a way that I never hear among my own generation.