Trading Places

A timely book called “150 Best Recession-Proof Jobs” arrived in our office this week, packed with tables ranking professions that should survive the downturn. No surprise that investment bankers don’t make the list, although economists do scrape in at #107, one spot above taxi drivers but below podiatrists.

If you’re a computer systems analyst at a bank, you’re in luck: you top the table for recession-proof industries. Bulge-bracket workers might want to skip to the list of best-paying recession-proof jobs, which is led by physicians and surgeons. If you can’t afford to stay out of the job market long enough to graduate from med school, then a career as an air-traffic controller might beckon.

Average earnings for controllers exceed $117,000 and training is all on-the-job, according to the 414-page tome. You need to have a “conventional” personality, which might not fit the description of the proverbial BSD, but traders might feel at home in a work environment described as “indoors; noisy; sitting.” The book hits the shelves in November. Publisher JIST Works might want to bring that date forward.

Picture: Workers talk at the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Herndron, Virginia, December 19, 2007. REUTERS/Larry Downing