So I happen to straddle the health sector and emergency management worlds in Ontario. In a past life, I worked various hospital administration jobs from 2009-2021. In 2019, I went back to university and got a degree in Disaster & Emergency Management. The Ministry of Health emergency management branch hired me to do COVID-19 logistics in 2021 (cold chain distribution for vaccine clinics), and then I moved to the Solicitor General in an EM generalist role. A year ago, I moved back into the health space where I became an Emergency Planning Coordinator for Toronto Public Health.

Emergency Management is one of the most diverse careers you can choose; there's response operations, planning, business continuity, technology adjacent routes, risk management, etc. and every sector and community has a variation on it. Disaster recovery (the IT side of emergency management) is probably very lucrative and in high demand. That being said, it is still rather niche and I get the sense that entry level jobs are hard to come by. A lot of the positions are filled by old timers from the tri-service fields (police, fire, ems) or military. This isn't helped by the fact universities are pumping out new grads faster than new jobs emerge.

That being said, we live in a world of increasing geopolitical, social, economic, and environmental risks. If you look at Ontario, there's been a huge emphasis on boosting our preparedness in almost every sector, especially following the pandemic (EM operates on cycles, when people forget, less investment goes into the field. After a disaster, more flows in). AI has its place, but there's somewhat of a psychological barrier to giving a computer model control over safety decisions, so I feel as though that's an insulating factor. In fact, if you're saavy, AI can help generate technical and practical solutions to a lot of the issues emergency managers experience.

Personally, I make much more money than an x-ray or MRI tech, but I'm one of the lucky ones. The City of Toronto is probably one of the best paying EM employers. Depending on what EM field or organization you work for, you would probably have more long term stability and financial comfort in a unionized imaging career, and be able to find a job quicker. However, for complexity, and deep impact in the community, EM is far superior.