Good Green Jobs

As reported today by Business News Daily, the Beyond.com Career Trend Analysis Report, a quarterly analysis of job and career data, highlights five “hot new job titles,” two of which involve doing good for the Earth: “green consultant” and, ahem, “eco-friendly freelance writer.” The former is the broad category that spans “helping organizations evaluate and improve internal environmental processes to aiding in the implementation of green strategies.” The latter is the not-so-posh world of providing “tips and information about green and eco-friendly living.”

Well, it does figure: A recent Brooking Institution report noted that there are currently 2.7 million “clean economy” jobs in the U.S., neatly edging out the number of “fossil fuel” jobs (2.4 million). Of course, they’re all dwarfed by the 4.78 million jobs in the information technology field. Which is one reason that, if you are somewhat skeptical about those green-freelance riches, you may want to pay closer attention to the three emerging job titles in the technology sector: Apple Store “genius” (aka retail tech advisor), Silverlight developer (for the ever-burgeoning world of multimedia and streaming video), and iPhone developer.

-- Reed McManus