Excellent Opportunities in The Nuclear Industry

John Murawski at the News & Observer provided some insights on the opportunities for young workers to fill the gap of the nuclear industry's retiring professionals:

Today the average age of the nation's nuclear workers is about 50. Many will be eligible to start retirement at 55. Within five years, about 35 percent of the specialists who have been running U.S. nuclear plants for the past quarter-century -- about 19,600 people -- are expected to begin a mass retirement.

With the explosion in job opportunity, nuclear professionals are mobile again after years of stagnating in a low-turnover industry.

...

"The market is very competitive," Scarola said. "It's not uncommon to make a job offer before the Christmas vacation to a student who won't graduate until May."

...

To keep up with job demand, university nuclear engineering departments have quadrupled enrollment in the past decade to about 2,000 students today.

...

Optimism is high at N.C. State, where nuclear engineering students hone their skills on a small nuclear reactor on campus and gain experience during paid summer internships at Progress Energy and Duke Energy nuclear plants. By the time they graduate, the students select from an average of 3.5 job offers in a field with median salaries that can reach $92,000 a year.

If many readers here have kids in high school or college, a career in the nuclear industry could pay them big bucks. According to wage estimates from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, engineers in the fields of nuclear, mechanical, chemical, and electrical (just some of the types of jobs needed at a nuclear plant) can pay an average of $73K to $92K a year.

Be sure to check out this link for the types of careers in the nuclear industry and this link for sample job descriptions and salaries.