By Deborah K. Shepherd, CSW, Assistant Director
(February/March 1997)
The good news is that the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics is predicting that "employment of social workers [in the U.S.] is expected to increase faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2005." (Occupational Outlook Handbook, March, 1996).
And, according to a recent U.S News and World Report article , "Best Jobs for the Future," social workers will be in demand for services for the aging; employee assistance programs; group homes for people with developmental disabilities, substance abusing teenagers and former prisoners; and out placement services for laid-off employees.
The article featured "Case Manager" as a "hot track" job which required a social work degree. "Besides the chronically ill, clients [of case managers] range from the elderly to children with severe emotional disabilities. Insurers, health care organizations and individuals all see hiring case managers as a way to organize care and thus keep the costs down," the article stated. Unfortunately, the article contained a glaring inaccuracy: the position of case manager does not require a social work degree: in hospitals, many nurses serves as case managers, and some agencies hire case managers without professional degrees.
Given the concern of NASW members who visit the Chapter office to use our Job Book, and reports from the social work community, these reports were welcomed, but were also viewed with some skepticism. Since the experiences of some of our members might seem to contradict the optimistic forecast on the National front, Currents undertook to look behind the forecast to get a better picture of the job situation in New York City.
While the BLS Occupational Outlook for 1996 states that "Employment of social workers in private social service agencies will grow...", it adds that "...Agencies will increasingly restructure services and hire more lower paid human services workers instead of social workers." As far as government employment, the BLS report projected growth, with the caveat that "...employment levels will depend on government funding for various social service programs." The report's projection for health care shows an upswing in employment for social workers in home health care services, and as discharge planners in hospitals, but otherwise does not mention mental health, one of the biggest fields of social work practice.
An informal survey of practitioners in several of the areas cited in the BLS report and the U.S. News and World Report article seems to reflect a mixed outlook.
While one would expect growth in gerontological social work because of the aging of the population, support for this projection is not yet visible, and, in New York at least, there have been efforts to deregulate and deprofessionalize this field.
Dr. Natalie Gordon, the Vice President for Social Work and Community Programs at The Jewish Home and Hospital was cautiously optimistic that services to "the oldest old" would need social workers in the future.
"Things are uncertain right now. In their eagerness to cut costs, health care organizations are viewing social services as having a low priority. But I have a hunch that things will settle down in the future, with physicians demanding that we do something about providing social services," she says.
Opportunities on three levels
Joel Levy, DSW, Chief Executive Officer for the Young Adult Institute which provides services to people with developmental disabilities, sees opportunities for social workers at three different levels in his practice area: on the supervisory level for group homes and community residences; as administrators of agencies, and to provide counseling and therapy to people with developmental disabilities in primary health care and specialty therapeutic centers. Dr. Levy agrees with projections that social workers will continue to be in demand in providing services to this population.
Dr. Paul Kurzman, Professor and Chair of the World of Work programs at the Hunter College School of Social Work, concurs that EAPs (Employee Assistance Programs) are a growth area for social workers. In EAPs, social workers provide individual counseling for clients, do trainings for the organization, run workshops, and often oversee the provision of child care and elder care services.
There are two ways that a company can provide assistance to its employees, through in-house EAPs and by contracting with external EAP providers. Dr. Kurzman sees growth in employment for social workers in both in-house and contracted EAPs, but says the contracted ones will expand more rapidly.
Comprehensive Programs
"EAPs have to hire professionals who are licensed mental health providers. The trend is to provide comprehensive programs, not just those focused on alcoholism and substance abuse," notes Dr. Kurzman. (For more about employment in the area of alcohol and substance abuse treatment see article by Dr. Lala Straussner, p. 5).
Rosemary Lavinsky, a social worker who does career management counseling and whose clients include many social workers, says that EAPs will hire social workers, but stresses that they must have experience in alcohol and substance abuse counseling.
She also sees social policy, planning and administration as a growth area for social workers, albeit a small one.
"The people getting jobs are getting on the staffs of people in political office, in the areas of policy and planning," she notes, adding, however, that there are not vast numbers of jobs in this area.
She cautioned that social workers who are looking to start a private practice are unrealistic if they are not looking at the impact of managed care. She also advises joining or starting a group practice rather than going it alone.
"The deciding factor on the future of social work depends on what happens in the area of managed care," she says.
"Outplacement [for workers who have been down-sized by their companies] is a logical area for social workers to move into, because of their counseling skills," says Karen Metzger, a social worker who is also a management/career counselor. But she adds that "...there is a tendency on the part of social workers not to understand the world of business."
She says that outplacement is a relatively new area and that there is "no enormous trend" in hiring social workers, but she does see a potential niche for social workers in government agencies that are providing outplacement for their own workers. She says that social workers might also be hired by small companies that are "outsource vendors" that contract with businesses. Another area where she can foresee a role for social workers would be as liaisons between managed care companies and health care providers.
The picture in health care is not rosy, as thousands of NASW members who are living with downsizing, managed care, hospital mergers and closures can reflect. Gerald Beallor, Co-chair of the Chapter's Health Care Policy and Practice Network says that the bad news in hospitals concerns the restructuring of social work departments and the downsizing of social work managers/administrators in these facilities. As of January, there had not been reports of widespread lay-offs of social workers in health care facilities.
Mr. Beallor does see increasing opportunities for social workers in the mental health side of health care, and, to some extent, in ambulatory care.
As for the position of case manager, he says that "...in long-term care and in the case of chronic illness, social work is the profession of choice for case management." However, when it comes to acute care in hospitals, many people in the health care field believe that nurses are the case managers of choice.
Since we are exploring the not too distant future, it also makes sense to chart the trends at the City's graduate schools of social work, from which the next wave of MSWs will enter the profession. There has been some concern that continued high enrollment in the schools will mean that more people will be competing for the same jobs. There is also the possibility, of course, that more jobs will open up and will absorb the large number of new graduates who enter the field. As to whether an uncertain job market has affected applications for enrollment in the schools, the picture is decidedly mixed.
At the Hunter College School of Social Work, enrollment has remained steady at about 300, but applications are down. At Columbia, applications have also been down over the past two years for the 300 full-time and part-time places in the entering classes.
Numbers of applications to NYU were up slightly in 1996. This year, they are running the same or slightly lower in the competition for 190 full-time places. At the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, admissions took a dip in 1996. This year, however, the numbers are up again. Wurzweiler admits 250 students each year. At Fordham, applications jumped considerably between 1994 and 1996, and this year, numbers are also high. Fordham admits approximately 325 students to its Lincoln Center campus.
New graduates are getting jobs, according to information supplied by the schools. Job postings are coming in at a steady rate and agencies are sending representatives to school-sponsored job fairs. Entry-level jobs do not appear to be in jeopardy.
"It's not as bad as people think it is for new grads," says NYU Director of Admissions Stuart Gitlin. "What we're seeing doesn't reflect a need for panic." He added that by last October, 91% of NYU's Class of 1996 had found jobs.
In the end, what we found most telling in the reports we read were the areas of practice they didn't focus on and where most of the profession is currently employed: mental health, health care, and child welfare. While the reports cite, for example, employee assistance programs as a growth area for social work, this is still a small field for the profession.
As far as the future, there are a number of things social workers can do now that will both enhance their employability and insure that there will be a social work profession in which to be employed. On an individual level, social workers will have to develop new skills or re-tool current skills to fit new positions in growth areas To this end, the Chapter has been holding ongoing workshops on career/skill building and plans to continue to do so during the program year. And, as a group, NASW members band together for social action to stem the tide against deprofessionalization. These efforts take the form of lobbying on the State and City level; holding speak-outs, rallies and press conferences; joining like-minded coalitions; and issuing and disseminating position papers such as "Social Work: A Unique Profession Vital to Life and Safety," which was recently used to persuade state legislators that social work should be licensed. For more information on any of these areas, call the Chapter office at 212 668-0050, and for further discussion on the state of the field today, members are invited to attend the Chapter's Annual Meeting, to be held on April 14 at the NYU Medical Center.