It offers a starting salary of $39,000 a year -- and to get it takes only two years at a technical college near you.

That's the average starting wage for a registered nurse, a career that is among the hottest in the country.

"All of them are employed before they leave here," said Alice Frye, the dean of health sciences at Aiken Technical College. "With all the nursing schools in the area, we're still not producing enough."

The college produces about 80 registered nurses every year.

One of them should be Jason Webber, a 35-year-old Aiken resident who is on target to get his degree in May.

He isn't waiting until then to start his job search. As soon as the winter break is over, he'll start searching for a job at a hospital emergency room.

"I thought it was a good time for a career change. I'm about to have my second child," said Mr. Webber, an Aiken County EMS employee.

Mr. Webber said that he likes working in emergency services but that the field's career path is limited.

"Sky is the limit as a nurse," he reasoned.

He'll be in a career where greater numbers will be needed over the next decade. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the greatest need for skilled workers will be in health care, education, management, accounting and computer services.

When the U.S. Labor Department recently made its employment projections out to 2016, registered nurses were at the top of the list of occupations with the largest growth. There should be 587,000 more of them working nationwide by then.

With only a year of training, a person could become a licensed practical nurse. There's a high demand for them too. An LPN has a starting salary of $24,000.

Augusta Technical College produces 150 of them annually.

"If they want a job, they get a job," said Gwen Taylor, the head of the college's allied health division.

The Georgia Department of Labor has nursing, health care aides and child care aides as the tops in growth in this area. The same holds true in South Carolina.

Although it seems health care careers dominate the needs of the future, there are some meat-and-potatoes careers that also have students employed before they graduate.

"We find that a lot of the automotive businesses are really after our graduates," said James Price, the head of industrial technology at Augusta Tech. Local companies will go so far as to call the college to ask that a few students be sent over to fill a demand.

"Welding is a booming area. We've got several companies, like BAE Systems, that are continuing to demand more welders. We're doing a lot of welding training. A full slate, and can always use more," said Tracy Pierner, the dean of technical education at Aiken Tech.

Mr. Pierner said that demand is not going to go down in the near future, considering the construction in the area, especially at Savannah River Site.

In general, job placement rates for technical college graduates are high, 98 percent at Augusta Tech, for example.

The needs of the future aren't completely tied to the growth of health care and the economy. This is where the buzz word "replacement" comes in.

"Most of the nurses are baby boomers. They are approaching or have reached retirement age," Ms. Taylor said. "That's creating some shortage. There's a shortage in faculty; that's the same thing."

The shortage in faculty is making it difficult to train more nurses.

There will be 413,000 registered nurses needed over the next decade to make up for retirements, the federal labor department predicts. That's in addition to the 587,000 needed for the growth of the industry.

Retirements in the nuclear industry should make that a hot career path, too, Mr. Pierner said. Couple that with the nuclear renaissance in this country and the Southeast's being posed to house such power plants.

Aiken Tech is bringing back an associate's degree in nuclear technology, a program that died out 15 years ago, Mr. Pierner said.

Technical schools make their living by adjusting to what employers want and producing the skilled work force they need.

Service-providing industries are expected to account for about 18.7 million of the 18.9 million new wage and salary jobs generated over the next decade. Of those, the government predicts 4.3 million of them will be in health care.

Next semester, Mr. Webber will be doing his preceptorship -- he will work a nurse's schedule with a nurse watching over his shoulder -- at Aiken Regional Medical Centers.

He's not worried about getting a job after college.

"The hard part is getting the job where you want it," Mr. Webber said.

Reach Tim Rausch at (706) 823-3352 or timothy.rausch@augustachronicle.com.