The recent bailout packages and the status of the U.S. economy may impact students’ abilities to get a job after college.

Brian J. Pillsbury, assistant director for Team Supervision of Career Services, said “The slow economy has the potential to negatively affect employment in many industries due to the fact that small business owners may not be able to get loans that will keep them in business.”

This would affect the company’s ability to pay its workers, Pillsbury said.

Jeremy Groves, assistant professor of economics, said the type of sectors that will be safer

through a recession will depend upon the degree of the recession.

“The deeper the recession, the wider the effects, the harder it’s going to be for everyone to find jobs, especially students,” Groves said.

Washington’s bailouts have the potential to help the economy said Mary Myers, associate director of Career Services.

“Ideally [the bailouts] will improve banks’ ability to lend money, which should be positive for the housing industry,” Myers said.

However, the exact results remain unknown.

“We don’t know how the bailouts are going to actually affect the markets yet simply because they haven’t been implemented yet,” Groves said.

Myers said recession-proof job sectors include education, specifically math and science related, health care, computer science, security and safety related, accounting, business, marketing and engineering.

Myers suggested that students not consider the economy when choosing a job, but instead research Labor Market Data, including occupational projections, wages and geographic locations.

“I originally wanted to go into elementary education,” said Phoebe Blaustein, a senior secondary math education major, “but when I looked at the job market, I changed majors.”

For non-recession-proof occupations Myers suggests focusing on transferable skills, such as customer service, teamwork, computer skills and leadership that will increase an applicant’s chances at being hired.

“Pad your resume to kind of make yourself stick out because these industries will be hiring new people, they just likely won’t be hiring as many. So the trick becomes to make yourself different and stick out among everybody else, especially during a time like this,” Groves said.