Mapping opportunities article

In a recent article in the magazine Nature, entitled Mapping Opportunities, some interesting statistics were provided regarding the job market for GIS technology professionals.The article was highly complimentary of the roll of GIS professionals in combating SARS, fighting fires, and other natural resource disasters.According to the article, the U.S.Department of Labor identified geographic information technology as "one of the three most important emerging and evolving fields, along with nanotechnology and biotechnology.Job opportunities are growing and diversifying as geospatial technologies prove their value in ever more areas."

It highlighted other significant statistics:

• The $5 billion worldwide geospatial market will grow to $30 billion by 2005; a dramatic increase that is sure to create new jobs, according to Emily DeRocco, assistant secretary at the US Department of Labor's employment and training division.
• NASA says that 26% of its most highly trained geotech staff are due to retire in the next decade.
• National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) [Now the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]is expected to need 7,000 people trained in GIS in the next three years.
• Of the 140,000 organizations globally that use GIS, most are government agencies
• The U.S.military, the first industry to adopt GIS and remote sensing on a large scale, has spent more than $1 billion on commercial remote sensing and GIS in the past two years.