With an estimated 30,052 fire departments in the United States, landing a job as a firefighter is no problem, right?
Not so fast. The demand for firefighters is estimated to grow by 5 percent from 2014-2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This means 17,400 new firefighters will be added to the workforce by 2024 (not counting replacements for retired firefighters).
On the surface, that’s roughly two firefighters for every department in the United States. But remember, out of those 30,000 fire departments, only a fraction are full-time career departments. All of a sudden competition is stiffer and more geographically concentrated than you may have thought.
So while landing a job as a firefighter is possible, it’s important to know what can you do to give yourself a leg up in the hiring process. What areas are more likely to be hiring? FireRescue1 has done some of the strategic heavy lifting for you.
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Methodology:
- FireRescue1 examined 10 major job boards (including Firerecruit.com and National Testing Network) to find how many open firefighter jobs are available and how many have been available in the last year. By comparing our findings, we’ve uncovered a trend, revealing states and cities that tend to hire the most often.
- We uncovered wage data from Bureau of Labor Statistics for average salaries in the hottest cities for hiring.
- We used The National Fire Department Census to estimate the amount of registered departments per county.
For further reading on how to land a firefighting job, check out these great resources:
