Got Skills?

While the over-educated masses sit around on their butts desperate for work and cursing their expensive, seemingly useless degrees, a certain population of U.S. workers can't even keep up with their job offers.

The New York Times reports that companies and contracters looking to hire experienced skilled labor are having trouble filling the positions -- it took one manager 18 months to find the 80 welders he needed for one particular project.

Those who are looking to retrain for a new skill in order to dive back into that job market should consider the following, according to the Times: welding; critical care nursing; electrical lining; special education; geotechnical engineering; repiratory therapy; and civil engineering. Nurses, as always, are also in demand, but slightly less so than in recent years, partly because many are coming out of retirement back into the work force since the recession hit.

But, however wise it may be to get some training now, this immediate opening in the job market is not for recent vocational school graduates Most of the jobs going unfilled right now require skills that take years to attain, and in some cases employers even demand ten years of experience before considering a resume. Plus, according to one Oregon-based research firm, often times those who have the vocational training necessary for these jobs do not have the educational background that employers seek in filling demanding and high-paying skilled labor jobs- so getting an academic education first is not a waste of time, but instead a means to reach the upper level and higher paying of skilled labor jobs.