Chicago Teaching Jobs Garner New Interest

Posted on March 23, 2009

If you’ve always wanted to work in education, now may be the time to look into a Chicago teaching job.

Many people often switch careers to take on jobs as teachers, but this has become more true with the current economic recession bearing on many other industries. According to an article by The Associated Press, people who switch careers make up about one-third of new teachers.

“One of the only benefits of living in such tough economic times now is that you have folks getting laid off and looking for work,” Arne Duncan, former Chicago Public Schools CEO, who is now President Obama‘s education secretary, said in the article.

One organization, The New Teacher Project, is assisting people who are switching to teaching careers. The organization reported that 29,576 people have applied for its teaching fellows programs this year, a 44 percent increase from last year.

The Chicago-Naperville-Joliet area’s education and health services industry employed 521,500 workers during January, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is down from 528,600 workers during December 2008, but a 2.5 percent increase from last year.

As a whole, Illinois’ education and health services industry employed 803,400 workers during January, down from 805,100 workers during December 2008 and a 1.6 percent increase from last year.