Midlands Market Abuzz with Tech Jobs Advanced Manufacturing and Nuclear Close Behind By Kristine Hartvigsen
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he field of information technology (IT) reigns supreme in the Midlands job market, with health care and insurance IT jobs comprising a significant subsection of the pot, according to local job experts.
“The number of vacancies in the IT field in our area is just amazing,” says Marshall “Sonny” White, president of Midlands Technical College. The reasons are many, including the influence of the web, social media, cloud computing and big-data analytics.
Insurance IT In the specific area of insurance IT, the Columbia area is way out front. “We are the insurance technology leader in the nation here in the greater Columbia
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area,” White says. “People just don’t realize that Blue Cross Blue Shield is mainly a technology company that just happens to handle insurance applications” and related matters. Vicki Hamby, associate director of the University of South Carolina Career Center, concurs. “IT is a particularly strong need in the Midlands market,” she says. Job candidates with IT skills have a leg up in today’s competitive market, especially since Columbia has become an insurance IT hub. A study titled “Insurance Technology
and Services South Carolina,” published in March 2012, found that the insurance IT industry in the Midlands alone supports some 15,000 jobs and contributes an estimated $6.7 billion in economic impact annually. Supplemental insurer Aflac in Columbia added 1,000 jobs in just the past couple of years, White notes, and the upward trend continues. Changes coming to health care also will influence what the market is likely to do in the coming year or two. “We have over 37,000 jobs in the Midlands of South Carolina in health care,” White notes, with a significant portion of them in insurance IT. The Affordable Care Act only portends additional shifts in demand for skilled workers. “We all know that it is changing,” White says. “We don’t know what the landscape is going to look like in the next five to 10 years. We know electronic medical records is going to explode.” In fact, Midlands Tech is looking at how to expand its offerings in health care records/information management to meet the need. It’s also shoring up its programs for nurses, dental lab technicians, nuclear medicine technicians, and other in-demand health care areas. “In the health care field, all of our programs are always full up,” White says. White spends a majority of his time out in the local business community learning free-times.com
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about the latest employment trends. In discussions with area hospital administrators, he has learned that hospital officials are expecting to see a significant increase in the number of perhaps newly insured people seeking front-end care as well as an increasing need for health-care generalists who not only have patient care skills but some IT skills as well. They will be looking for the “double-threat” candidates to fill this anticipated need.
Manufacturing on the Rebound
Another hot area for jobs in the Palmetto State is in technology-driven advanced manufacturing. “What we’ve been seeing in recent years is a ‘re-shoring’ of advanced manufacturing,” White explains. “South Carolina is particularly ahead of the curve. The governor and (Commerce Secretary) Bobby Hitt have done a great job,” he says, helping to clear the way for expansions of companies such as BMW, Boeing, and Michelin. “This is so very important to the United States and especially for South Carolina.” A U.S. Commerce Department report released in June showed that since January 2011, South Carolina has recruited more than 23,000 jobs in manufacturing, along with more than $9 billion in capital investment. facebook.com/freetimes
August 14-20, 2013