The Adirondack region’s ‘most promising jobs’

Adirondack Foundation report highlights high-demand jobs for young professionals across the North Country

By Tim Rowland

A long-lamented fact of Adirondack life is that young people by necessity must move away to find a financially and emotionally rewarding career. Some of the reasons are long-standing, while some are somewhat the product of a workforce changed by the pandemic.

It’s true that the population of the Adirondacks is getting smaller and older, and some of that is attributable to young people moving out. But it is also attributable to older (childless) retirees moving in, and couples choosing to have fewer children.

But for young people who do grow up here, there is no opportunity for lucrative and interesting work — just might be fundamentally flawed.

The Adirondack Foundation has compiled a report “Most Promising Jobs of the Adirondack North Country” showing all sorts of local opportunity, in the form of work that pays above the Park’s median $46,000 income in areas where there will be at least 300 job openings in the current decade.

The report’s author, the foundation’s Jennifer Russell, poured over reams of Department of Labor statistics to produce a colorful, compelling look at the North Country jobs scene. “The Department of Labor has some great information, but people don’t go around looking at Department of Labor statistics,” she said.

The report is made available to students, who can browse through its pages looking for jobs that correspond to their interests. Kids themselves are probably aware of openings for nurses, teachers and the trade workers, of which there are many.  

But perhaps they haven’t thought about landscaping, physical therapists, environmental scientists, civil engineers or professional drivers, all of which pay well and have ample openings. Tourism jobs typically don’t make the list because of their low pay, but opportunities still exist for recreation managers, housekeeping supervisors or foresters.

Through coaching and exposure to viable careers in and around the Blue Line, schools and nonprofits are seeking to present the Adirondacks as  a land not just of beauty, but of opportunity.

“Students have been leaving the area and finding opportunities elsewhere, so how do we flip that trend,” Russell said. “How do we paint the picture that there are opportunities here?”

Information, such as that found in the Foundation’s report, is a significant step, one Russell said has been well-received in Adirondack schools by teachers  and students alike. 

Still, she said, the challenges are steep. A professional social worker, for example, might have to earn an advanced degree, take on student-loan debt and then go into a line of work that doesn’t pay much better than those obtained by kids who graduate from high school and take the first job that comes along.

Other students might drop out of college before graduating, leaving them with debt and nothing to show for it, because — not knowing all the options — they chose a career path that didn’t fit their interests. 

Thus the importance of starting conversations and planting seeds: There is sure to be a career specifically tailored to a student’s interests; you can leave the park to ply your trade, see the world and then come back; community colleges are incredibly cost-effective and lead to good jobs or further educational opportunities; health care matters; a retirement plan will be of growing value long after the shiny truck is a rusting hulk.

The Foundation’s report is a way of breaking the ice on these topics. “It’s a good conversation starter,” Russell said. “It’s a nice way to connect with schools, counselors, parents and students to see how we can all work together.”