In recent years, changes in telecommunications have made companies, formerly either focused on phone or cable services, expand into each other's territories in pursuit of the "triple play"--phone, TV and Internet.  The addition of the new services is boosting hiring in the industry nationwide.

According to statistics from the RI Department of Labor and Training, there were nearly 3,000 telecommunications jobs in RI last year, with an average salary of $61,655. Cox New England and Verizon both employ about 1,200 people in each.

On Aug. 24, Cox demonstrated a variety of jobs at a daylong event for 10 students, ages 12 to 17, from the RISE (Rhode Islanders Sponsoring Education) program, which provides education and mentoring to children whose parents are or have been in prison. RISE, which was founded by Brown University physicians Tim Flanigan and Kevin Vigilante, began with 22 students in 1997. Now there are about 160...

...“We get a lot of referrals from people here, we recruit on the Internet, we use job fairs… our strategy used to be to go to colleges. But we’re finding that’s too late to reach people,” she said. “Now we try to go to the high schools and build internships. Kids are very very smart these days about what in the world is available to them.”...

...Patricia Blakemore, director of career services at the New England Institute of Technology, said Cox and Verizon have been recruiting NEIT students who have studied electronics engineering technology, information technology, network engineering, video and audio production technology and digital recording technology.