Top 10 High Demand Jobs in Mt. Pleasant, Shrimping Capital

Mt. Pleasant, one of 2010's Top 10 All-America Cities and one of the Best 100 Places to Live is located on the northeastern shore of Charleston Harbor. Mt. Pleasant has seen military action during the American Revolution, the American Civil War, and World War II as an important port city for the country's Atlantic Seaboard defense.  

Today, Mt. Pleasant is important for commercial and passenger transportation via local rivers and the harbor and is famous for shrimping in the waters of Charleston Harbor. An annual blessing of the shrimping fleet is a colorful addition to the local diverse culture.

To the southeast, tthree additional smaller cities generate interest as vacation areas as well as residential and workplace sites. These are Isle of Palms, Johns Island, and Sullivan's Island. They are part of a line of inviting beaches along the Atlantic shoreline of South Carolina and attract many visitors each year.

Unfortunately, Sullivan's Island was also a landing place for nearly half of the African slave population that arrived in the original British Colonies. This makes Sullivan's Island a dark counterpart to Ellis Island and its immigration of free people through New York. Since 2008, a commemorative bench recognizing the victims of the slave trade has rested on the beach of Sullivan's Island, placed there by writer Toni Morrison's foundation. In addition, a museum slave ship docks from time to time in Charleston Harbor. Many of today's African-Americans are tied to Sullivan's Island by bloodlines.

Edgar Allan Poe is also linked to Sullivan's Island. He was stationed at Fort Moultrie there and wrote his short story The Gold Bug with the setting of the fort and island.

The early Fort Moultrie (circa 1775) was part of a military base built as a series of four harbor forts on and near Sullivan's Island. The first fort, Fort Moultrie, was constructed of resilient palmetto logs, the palmetto tree becoming part of the South Carolina Flag. The fort was home to Edgar Allan Poe in the US Army for a time and is now a national monument area and a visitor's attraction. Reconstructed and bolstered with new war technologies several times, the fort served the US military well though WWII, nearly 200 years.

Mt. Pleasant offers many activities and attractions for resident and visitors around the year, with different events each month. National holidays bring parades and other events, and famers markets operate each weekend in the warmest months. Regional golf tournaments occur several times per year as well. National historic sites fill the Charleston Harbor area with additional attractions and venues that include:

• Blackbeards Cove Family Fun
• Boone Hall Plantation
• Old Mount Pleasant Shopping District
• Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum - Charleston Harbor
• Palmetto Islands County Park

One National Register District is Old Village, featuring colonial American and antebellum houses among historic churches. Pitt Street is the village center that supports shops, boutiques, a pharmacy with a soda fountain, and The Old Village Post House inn and tavern.

Local yearly events include:

• Largest Oyster Festival in the World – Boone Hall Plantation - January
• Lowcountry Gullah Heritage Programs and Gullah Heritage Days – 1^st Quarter yearly
• Mount Pleasant Arts Festival - March
• Charleston Race Week - April
• Historic Old Village Tours and Colonial Day Living History - April
• Annual Blessing of the Shrimping Fleet at Alhambra Hall - April
• Sweetgrass Cultural Arts Festival - June
• Scottish Games and Highland Gathering at Boone Hall Plantation - September
• Mount Pleasant Children's Day Festival - October
• Reenactment of the Battle of Secessionville - November

Within 25 miles of Mt. Pleasant, 8,000 jobs were listed after Thanksgiving 2010, with nearly 5,000 of these positions located within 5 miles of the center of the city.

Approximately 3,000 additional jobs are found in Charleston, North Charleston, Isle of Palms, The Village, Johns Island, and Sullivan's Island. The graph above shows increases in the Winter and Summer tourist seasons, with an additional upsurge beginning in Holiday Season 2010.

1. Pharmacists
2. Cashiers
3. Customer Service Representatives
4. Physical Therapists
5. Fabrication Specialists - manufacturing: aircraft assembly
6. Retail Sales Representatives
7. Registered Nurses (RNs) - NICU - Travel Jobs - see link below.
8. Hospice Registered Nurses - RNs
9. Other RNs
10. Shift Supervisors

Other High Demand Jobs

1. Assistant Managers
2. General Managers
3. Salespeople
   

1. Bi-LO - Supermarkets
2. SAIC - Scientific/IT
3. Boeing Company - Aircraft mfg.
4. Scientific Research Corp
5. L-3 Communications - Telecommuniatins
6. Roper St. Francis Healthcare
7. East Cooper Reagonal Medical Center
8. Tenet Healthcare Corporation
9. Trident Healthcare
10. Gentiva Health Services
11. Blockbuster Inc. - Entertainment/Full-time and part-time
12. AppleOne - Staffing agency
13. HCA Healthcare
14. Harris Teeter - Supermarkets
15. Kindred Healthcare
16. HCR ManorCare
17. Blackbaud - Siftware solutions worldwide
18. Advance Auto Parts, Inc.
19. Medical Devices Companies
20. Food Lion
    

• American College of Building Arts
• College of Charleston
• Charleston School of Law
• Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, College of Charleston School ...
• The Citadel Military College of South Carolina
• MUSC Medical Center