Now, first I must caution you, even the best geologists working for the best companies won’t make a lot of money. People don’t become geologists to become rich. I want to make that clear from the beginning. But working as a geologist has it’s own rewards. It could be finding an unknown deposit of oil where nobody thought oil could be found. You might discover the missing link between dinosaurs and birds. Maybe you’ll learn of a way to predict how earthquakes happen.
According to the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, geologists had median earnings of $53,890 per year in 1998. The lowest 10% of geologists earned less than $30,950 per year, while the highest 10% earned more than $101,390 per year. So there’s not much of a chance of a geologist becoming a billionaire like Bill Gates. Geologists and geophysicists and oceanographers held 44,000 jobs in the United States in 1998 (not including university positions). 1 in 3 were employed in engineering and management services while 1 in 6 were employed with oil and gas companies or in metal mining operations. 1 in 8 geologists were self-employed. The job market is looking good for the near future though. Jobs in geology are expected to grow as fast as the average through the year 2008. For geologists right out of school, they could expect to earn about $34,900 with a bachelor’s degree, or about $44,700 with a master’s degree.
Jobs in the oil and gas industry tend to be cyclical, and do depend greatly on the price of oil since oil and gas companies employ so many geologists. So the good news, for the foreseeable future is a good job market as long as oil and gas prices remain high. However, the downside to working with an oil company is there is not as much job stability as layoffs are common when oil prices drop.
Other jobs available to geologists cover much of the employment market. Environmental clean up companies hire geologists to do preliminary site work and to evaluate a clean up during and after the process. Much of this work is at superfund sites and requires a good background in chemistry and hydrology.
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