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Celebrate Good TimesFor decades, since the demise of the steel industry and other manufacturing that provided a middle class living to their forebears, young people growing up in Pennsylvania have had to look out of state for good blue-collar jobs.But the natural gas industry's foray into the region holds out hope for more employment, at higher wages. “I have never seen an opportunity like this, ever,” says Larry Michael, executive director of workforce and economic development at Pennsylvania College of Technology, who spearheaded a study on the new industry's need for workers. “Words absolutely cannot describe what is going on.”Read article: "A Drive for New Jobs Through Energy"

Photograph by Scott Goldsmith, National Geographic

A State Booms with New Energy

Hopes are high that jobs will flow as fast as the natural gas in the energy boom that has hit Pennsylvania, although locals are finding the new work is not necessarily on the drilling rig.

October 23, 2010