Elaine Chao, Secretary of Labor:

"America's economy is increasingly a knowledge-based economy. Two-thirds of all the new jobs being created require some kind of post-secondary education. Over the next decade, America will need 3 million health-care professionals and 1.7 million schoolteachers. We will need more than 900,000 engineers, including aerospace, biomedical, civil, computer software, and environmental engineers. We will also need workers in other high-growth industries including nanotechnology, geospatial technology, and the life sciences, to name a few.

"Higher-skilled jobs that require more education are clearly the future for the United States in the worldwide economy. And acquiring the skills and training to access these jobs is absolutely critical to the success of individual workers. From 2001 through 2006, high-paying occupations grew almost three times as much as lower-paying occupations. There is a "skills gap" in our economy that has kept lower-skilled workers from seeing their wages rise as quickly as workers in higher-skilled occupations.

"With the new school year starting, students need to be aware that high school dropouts make about $522 per week for full-time work and their unemployment rate is about 7.1 percent. Meanwhile, workers with a high school diploma average $704 weekly, and this segment of the work force has a 4.4 percent unemployment rate. Workers with associate degrees average about $846 per week, and this group's unemployment rate is 3.5 percent. But workers with a bachelor's degree or higher average $1,393 per week and have an unemployment rate of 2.1 percent."

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070903/OPINION01/709030313/1035/OPINION

Hello I dreameyes54  names Susan  just was reading your posts and wanted to say thank you for the post that was so interesting  im going for a bachelors but may reconsider and go masters degree in criminal justice  to help todlers and juveinals to be heard and become visiable to the justice system  about these victums of abuse , I know how that damages and scars your life I was in it from five to 51 years old ,had a breakdown in 2001 got mental and physicallydisabled both and am on medications and counsiling  whoich has helped alot . susan 

And to piggy-back henryw's update:

Statement of Philip L. Rones
Deputy Commissioner, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Friday, September 7, 2007
"Continuing job losses in manufacturing and construction, slower job growth in some service-providing industries, and declines in local government education contributed to the recent weakness in payroll employment."

With the availability of manufacturing jobs declining, it is essential to keep learning to develop marketable job skills.

Read the Deputy Commissioner's full statements here.

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Victoria is the Web Producer at eLearners.com. She earned a traditional Bachelor's degree in History from Smith College in 2005. She is currently an online course in English grammar.