AgrowKnowledge & AgCareers.com Release Enrollment and Employment Report for the Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources Industry
April 20, 2010
AgCareers.com
Are you a corporate recruiter managing college and university recruitment for your company, or a college or university faculty member who constantly works to recruit more quality students to your program? AgCareers.com and AgrowKnowledge have partnered once again to provide college recruiters, faculty, and the industry in general, information that can help us reach out to the student pipeline.
Dr. Rick Parker, AgrowKnowledge Director shared his motivation for partnering to make this information available, "Too often in agricultural education we move forward, make changes or fail to change based on assumptions and traditions. This report provides college-level, agricultural educators with some solid facts and trends that should help us prepare students for employment in agriculture, food and natural resource careers."
This information has been compiled into the US Enrollment and Employment Outlook Report. The purpose of the report is to gauge the awareness, availability, and perceptions of graduates and careers within the agriculture, food, and natural resource sciences. This report includes; enrollment data of associate and baccalaureate degrees in the agricultural field from the past 4 years, a look at what employment opportunities are available for those graduates, a salary outlook for internship and entry level positions in the agriculture career clusters, and results of a student perception of agricultural careers survey.
Information on college and university enrollment was collected from The Food and Agricultural Education Information System (FAEIS) and The National Center for Education Statistics. Data reflects enrollment numbers as far back as 2003 and as current as 2007. Data submitted to the FAEIS system was not yet complete for 2008 or 2009 when the information was extracted. “By looking back and investigating trends from the previous 5 years, we can begin to predict what the future contains in regards to the availability of graduates with a background and interest in working in the agri-industy,” stated Ashley Collins, Education Coordinator for AgCareers.com and team leader on the Enrollment and Employment Outlook Report.
Information regarding the availability of careers within the agricultural industry is reported based on job postings found on AgCareers.com within the past three years. AgCareers.com has built a reputation over the past ten years as the leading online job board within the agriculture industry. This reputation is reflected in the variety of industry sectors and career types represented in the more than 2,000 jobs posted on AgCareers.com each month. Data was grouped according to the seven pathways within the Agriculture and Natural Resource Career Cluster. These career clusters were developed and implemented by the United States Department of Education and are used in the education field to help students develop the knowledge and skills necessary to pursue secondary education related to the career cluster of their choice.
One important component to recruiting and retaining anyone to a career is the compensation package that comes with the occupation. Mary Barefoot, HR Speciali
