Is Global Warming Good for US Jobs?

There is little disagreement about whether global warming happening, only some, like Gov. Sarah Palin, question whether it is caused by people. Beyond that fight, there is another debate: what could be the effect of these environmental factors on jobs?

While "green collar jobs" were overshadowed during the general election by the financial meltdown, they remain a top component of President-elect Obama's energy plan, with predictions of 5,000,000 new jobs. Could the green sector be that important to our future economy?

According to a report on CNN.com, the effect of environmental factors on jobs could be an employment boom, or bust. The Apollo Institute, an organization that wants a government renewable energy project, predicts three million new green jobs over the next ten years. However, the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California Berkeley expects closer to one million new jobs by 2020.

Could your salary weather the effect of environmental factors on jobs?  Find out with PayScale's full salary survey.

Career Change at Middle Age

"Career change at middle age." Just the words seem daunting, but in our ever-changing job market and the current economic downturn, more and more people are switching careers, some by choice, and others out of economic necessity.

One common route to a career change is further education. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2006 employees with a graduate or professional degree earned an average salary of $80K, while those with bachelor's degrees earned an average of $55K; that's a big difference in pay. If you're interested in heading back to school, check out online degree programs in the PayScale Education Center.

Managing a career change at middle age was a topic on money.cnn.com, which examined costs of going to graduate school in middle age. The article cited numbers from the Council of Graduate Schools: $22K a year for a public university and $34,100 at a private school. It also stated that the average debt for most students is $37K. With that in mind, does pursuing a degree to make career change at middle age make sense?

How would a new degree affect your salary?  Find out with the PayScale Salary Calculator.

Telecommuting From Home Success Stories

Csmonitor.com devoted an entire article to telecommuting from home success stories. In the age of Blackberry, Skype, e-mail and instant messaging, it is becoming more common for businesses to allow employees to telecommute from home, or even the local coffee shop. I touched on this in my previous post about legitimate work at home jobs. 

Exactly how many people are working in their PJs? WorldatWork, a national organization of HR professionals, says that around 28 million Americans are working from home at least one day per month, and that number could reach 100 million by 2010. Which jobs were included in these telecommuting from home success stories?  Keep reading!

How does your salary compare to telecommuting from home success stories?  Find out with the PayScale Salary Calculator. You can also use the PayScale Cost of Living Calculator to see how much you would need to make to maintain your current standard of living in a different city. 

Jobs with Good Vacation Plans

For some folks, time off from work can be just as important as salary. Fortunately, there are careers that allow you to take more time off than the average Joe who might get 2 weeks.  In fact, some careers offer two to three months off. According to an article on Yahoo, jobs with good vacation plans are out there, you just need to know where to look.

However, increased free time often comes with increased risk. If your idea of a fun vacation is being paid, and having a job to come back to, some of these options may not be for you.

How does your salary compare to jobs with good vacation plans? Find out with PayScale's full salary survey.

Setting Pastor Salaries and Pastor Compensation

The stereotype of the televangelist with six cars and seven houses has pretty much faded away. When it comes to setting pastor salaries these days, BaptistStandard.com reports that the national average pastor compensation is $77,096.

This average comes from The Compensation Handbook for Church Staff an "industry" survey of compensation. This average is significantly higher than the PayScale median salary of $56,000 for Senior Pastors.

As we will see, the difference is both in the definition of compensation and the scope of responsibility. It never is just about the job title :-)

How does your salary compare to the average pastor compensation?  Find out with our salary calculator.

College Football Coaches' Pay, Top Secret?

Does the public have a right to know how much state employees earn, including college football coaches' pay?  That' issue has been tied up in litigation for years in Pennsylvania.  Back in 2002, a reporter for the Harrisburg Patriot-News asked the State Employees Retirement System for the annual salaries of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and three other Penn State officials.

The State Employees Retirement System okayed the request, but Penn State tried to block it... all the way up to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which recently ruled 4-2 in favor of the newspaper. According to a report on philly.com, the ruling applied not only to college football coaches' pay, but also to the salary of any Penn State worker enrolled in the retirement system. This is similar to the case in California concerning public worker pay, and the result is the same.

So how much does Joe Paterno earn? Keep reading!

How does your salary compare to college football coaches' pay? Find out with the PayScale Salary Calculator. You can also use the PayScale Cost of Living Calculator to see how much you would need to make to maintain your current standard of living in a different city. 

My Job Duties Exceed my Pay; What Should I Do?

A couple of readers asked the following questions:

"[1] How do I get an accurate report on comparable salaries when my job duties far exceed my job title? I took a "part time" while finishing school which has transformed into much more than administrative assistant. [2] How do I know the true worth of the duties I perform?"

The first question, since it is about market pricing an employee, is something we obsess about here at Payscale.com. The second goes beyond market data, and gets into the question of worth and what people should be paid.

In this post, I will look at these questions. For those in a hurry, here is a hint at the answer to the first: complete the PayScale salary survey. :-)

GigZig: Career Paths of Real People

PayScale released a cool new tool today, GigZig. It lets you see the career paths of real people. GigZig is based on a simple question we ask during our salary survey: "what was your job 5 years ago?"

As a data guy, I just love the wealth of information. Together with our data on what a job pays, a person evaluating their current career choice, or investigating a new one, can get a pretty complete picture of both what other people have done in their careers, and what they are paid.

In this post, I will look at a web developer career path, explain a little bit about how GigZig, works, and ponder the Waitress/Waiter in everyone's past.

No matter where you are going in your career, are you being paid what you are worth for where you are now? Find out with the PayScale Salary Survey.

Are PayScale Surgeon Salaries Off?

Chris, a reader, commented on the surgeon vs. football player salaries post, "Many of the average/base salaries for physicians/surgeons posted in this article are off by hundreds of thousands of dollars."

I am confident that the data points that make up our averages correspond to the actual salaries received by individual surgeons. In fact, even our broad average salaries compare well with other broad averages, like the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey of all surgeon salaries by metropolitan area, when we select and group surgeons and geography in the same way.

Assuming Chris means his experience with surgeons' pay is very different from what we report, why are PayScale average surgeon salaries so "off"?

It comes down to which surgeons go into our averages, vs. the people Chris knows. In this post, I will look at what goes into "average" (median) surgeon salaries, why surgeon salaries vary so much, and why even a median may not really "typical."

Is your pay off by $100,000's? Use the PayScale salary survey to find out.

Top Paying Jobs For People with No College Degrees

In a previous column, I mentioned some top paying jobs for people with no college degrees.  The response was so strong that we are back for round two of the "best career choices with no college degree." Lest any parents out there accuse me of being an incompetent career counselor, keep in mind that neither Microsoft Founder Bill Gates nor Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has a college degree.

Of course, Bill dropped out of Harvard, and Larry out of the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago. If your kid gets into a top university (or two), and then wants to drop out, these two billionaires are evidence your child can still be a financial success...

As reported on CNN.com, one of the top paying jobs for people with no college degrees is working as an air traffic controller. You are directing which planes can land and take off, so hundreds of lives are in your hands. A college degree is not necessary, but you do need three years of on-the-job work experience and/or four years of college. You also need to pass pre-employment testing, make it through the FAA Academy, and more training. It does pay well; the median salary for an air traffic controller with 10-19 years of experience is $92,926.

How does your salary compare to a "no college degree salary?" Do the math with our salary calculator.