careers

Within the next few years, or maybe the moment you're done reading this, you'll need to give serious thought to your after-school future (and I don't mean next Friday night!). You may have your heart set on something, maybe you don't care as long as you know where the money is, but you still may want to give some thought to where you might expect to find work when school is really out.

The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has made projections for job growth (or shrinkage in some cases) for about any occupation you can think of. You can check on expectations for broad areas, like "technicians and related support" or "marketing and sales", or specific categories like "soldering and brazing" or "farm workers".

A quick glance at the BLS charts shows large expected growth in computer technologies and medical jobs. There's expected to be a large demand for medical assistants, home health aids, computer engineers, and database analysts. Changing technology is driving many of these changes. For example, BLS expects a sharp drop in the need for telephone operators. The need for desktop publishers is going up as fast as the need for printers is plummeting.

None of this is to say that you should give up the job you have your heart set on. It's important to be in a job you can stand doing, and a real bonus to enjoy your work. In fact, many people consider doing work they enjoy to be worth less money, tighter job markets, and so on. However, if you're inclined to go into mining or you've grown up dreaming of being a mainframe computer operator, you may want to keep your eyes open regarding the declining number of opportunities.

Another hopeful thought is that while there may be fewer of the jobs you want, there may be fewer people pursuing them. Then again, there can be many people looking for fewer jobs, especially when technology is rapidly making a profession obsolete, and there are lots of experienced people available for what remains. There will continue to be big demand for computer programmers and the pay is usually pretty good, but if you've learned just the one language and nobody uses it anymore, then you may find yourself investigating careers all over again.