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GOLDSEA | CAREER CENTER | JOBS AT FEATURED EMPLOYERS
HOT CAREERS OF THE 21ST CENTURY
f you are in school or are dissatisfied with opportunities in your present field, you may want to start your search for a new career by first considering which fields are experiencing the fastest growth. It has been clear for some time that virtually all the recent growth in the U.S. economy has been in the services sector, primarily those involving computer and automation, healthcare, business services and education. The manufacturing sector (i.e., companies making things like cars, appliances, etc) has either been flat or in decline.
In percentage terms the fastest growing career fields are: Computer and Data Processing Services 117% Health Services 67% Residential Care 57% Management and Public Relations 45% Personnel supply Service 43% Equipment Rental and Leasing 43% Museums, Botanical and Zoological Gardens 42% Research and Testing Services 40% Transportation Services 40% Security and Commodity Brokers 69% (U.S. Dept of Labor Statistics for 1998, the latest year available). But that list gives a distorted picture of where the real opportunities are because the fields with the highest growth percentage don't necessarily have the largest number of job openings. Looking at the fields that have seen the biggest growth in terms of new jobs presents a more useful picture: Computer Engineers 108% Computer Support Specialists 102% Systems Analysts 94% Database Administrators 77% Desktop Publishing Specialists 73% Paralegals and Legal Assistants 62% Personal Care and Home Health Aides 58% Medical Assistants 58% Social and Human Service Assistants 53% Physician Assistants 48% (U.S. Dept of Labor Statistics for 1998, the latest year available). Those looking for careers where they are most likely to command top dollar will want to take the search another step to careers that combine both the biggest growth in terms of actual projected demand coupled with the biggest anticipated shortage of prospective applicants preparing to fill them. That list is quite different from the prior two and may come as a shock to those who have been thinking that the traditional fields were on the way out.
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Finally, those who want to be in the catbird seat even within the hottest occupations will want to take their search even further by asking which specialties within each occupation are likely to be most in demand. Pulling back for a big picture of which industries have seen developments likely to lead to the most explosive growth, we come up with the following list:
By reflecting recent and anticipated changes in technologies and lifestyles, the list will help you pick the winning horses in the growth race. For example, given the rate at which wireless and satellite communications is replacing wired and land-based communications, one can expect that companies providing cellular and satellite services will outgrow companies selling tradtional phone services. If you are leaning toward business management as an occupation, you might want to seek jobs in the wireless communication industry over those in the traditional phone companies. By way of another example, the recent breakthrough in the mapping of the human genome makes it likely that gene therapy will be a hot growth niche within the rapidly growing healthcare field. If you have an interest in a medical profession, you might want to consider specializing in endocrinology in order to take advantage of the likely demand for physicians knowledgeable in gene therapies. No one has a crystal ball, but you can keep the odds in your favor by factoring the big trends into your career strategies.
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