At the beginning of the year 2009, a Chinese friend told me that astrologers predicted that it would be the worst year for a lot of people. I dismissed it offhandedly, saying that no one can predict such things. Unfortunately, it did turn out to be rather bad for a LOT. In terms of career, here are the worst hit jobs in the past year, courtesy of MSN Career Builder.

Architects – according to statistics, many architects did not survive the year. A whopping 17.8 percent lost their jobs in the first three quarters of 2009 alone! This is not really that surprising as not many were into building in the past year.

Carpenters – what happened to the architects happened to carpenters as well. Throughout the various levels of the carpentry profession, job losses were experienced in the past year. The numbers are quite shocking – around 270,000 carpenters lost their jobs in 2009.

Pilots – now this is quite a surprise, isn’t it? I would have thought that being a pilot afforded reasonable job security. However, all the issues facing the airline industry also extended to the pilots. In the past year, jobs for pilots (as well as flight engineers) spiraled down by 30.4 percent!

Computer (software) engineers – this is also a surprise for me. I have always thought that this profession was stable. The figures quoted were for the American job market, though; and the reason for the decline in jobs was that they were outsourced to countries where the labor is cheaper.

There is a longer list at MSN if you’re interested.

Now enough bad news. In a couple of days, we will be leaving 2009 behind and we will be welcoming a brand new year. Let’s take on a more positive outlook, shall we?