Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"The nature of a national recession is that it's pervasive. It affects all industries and all states, but if there is anything that's close to a recession-proof industry, I would say that it's health care. In fact, here in North Carolina during this first year of the recession, health care has actually added jobs in our state. And I think the reason is really fairly simple. One, of course, is people get sick or injured. Even if we have strong constitutions, we still have to go and get treated. So it's a necessity if you get sick or injured. But from a financial point of view, health care is different because a large part of the revenue going to health care providers comes from third parties - insurance companies and, importantly, the government. So that revenue source is unaffected by the economic problems that many households are facing. Now if I had to add a second industry, I'd say it would be education. It's still a requirement in our state and most states that children go to school: K through 12. Even more students are now finding it almost mandatory that they go to college. So that means that we're always going to need to staff those teaching positions, those assistant positions. At the college level, for example, where I am, what we're finding is that many of the baby boom professors who came in 30 or 35 years ago, they are now retiring. So that's opening up positions at the college level. Now the problem, of course, with many of these jobs in education and even some in health care is that they require long periods of time for training."