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The Big Pond: Where the Jobs Are

If you're job hunting in the professional or service-oriented fields, we have good news. Of the ten categories into which the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) divides jobs, the "professional" and "service" categories -- already the two largest in the economy -- will boast the most job openings in 2008. In the next decade, 17 percent more employees will be employed in these two categories than are today, nearly double the expansion of other categories.

With an increase in demand, professional and service jobs, which include professions like educator, scientist, health care worker and artist in the "professional" category, and police officer, child caretaker and cosmetologist in the "service" category, will also add roughly a million new jobs to the economy. By comparison, other categories such as construction, sales and administration, are predicted to grow by only 10 percent; all eight other occupational groups combined will add only about half a million jobs to the economy in 2008.

But wait a second: Aren't we heading for recession? Where are all these open jobs coming from? While new jobs are being created, they don't represent the majority of the open positions workers will see this year. Career switching and baby-boomer retirement will create a higher turnover than ever, which will continue to increase the supply of jobs available. The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that while a slightly expanding economy is spurring job growth in a majority of fields, "the need to replace workers who leave a field permanently is expected to create more openings than growth will."

According to Chris Higgins, Senior Associate Director of Career Management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, the retirement boom has increased students' interest in general management rotation programs, introduced by many companies to stave off losses of a record number of retirees. He notes that companies are using these rotation programs as a way of "fast-tracking" replacements in management, and students are using them as a way of getting a taste for different departments and niches within a company. "The idea is to prepare them to move up quickly," he notes, but to do so while developing each potential manager's individual interests. "It turns out to benefit the employers as well as the employees," observes Higgins.

If you're job searching in certain occupational groups -- namely farming, production, or transportation -- you're looking at slow or negative growth and poor job availability. Peer occupational groups, however, are hiring at a brisker pace: construction, administration, and maintenance and repair are all groups that are experiencing healthy growth or job availability. On the other hand, if you're looking in the white-collar realm, you're better set for 2008; both growth and availability are predicted to be healthy for the foreseeable future.