Job market to boom as baby boomers retire

The help-wanted section of your local paper offers a snapshot of today's labor market and a glimpse of the hot jobs of tomorrow. As the baby boomers -- born between 1946 and 1964 -- amble into retirement, employers will be racing to fill the positions they vacate and to provide for the needs of America's fast-graying population.

During the next decade, the greatest need for higher-skilled workers will be in health care, education, accounting and computer services, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Those trends can already be seen in today's job market, said Steve Pogorzelski, group president, international, for Monster Worldwide, operator of the job- search Web site Monster.com.

"Over the next three years, there are three areas we'll see in high demand: accounting and auditing, health care and Internet technology," Pogorzelski said. Right now, "it doesn't seem the occupational trends can keep up with demand."

The demand for accounting and auditing is driven mostly by two things: corporate compliance with tougher financial regulations and baby boomers' demand for retirement services, he said.

Despite worries that outsourcing would reduce the number of U.S.-based technology jobs, there continues to be strong growth in that field as well, according to the Monster employment index, which measures online job postings and availability on 1,500 Web sites each month. Demand is greatest for workers in databases, security, privacy and new media, Pogorzelski said.

Health care, projected to be the fastest-growing area in the next decade, is also seeing skill shortages in many positions, including registered nurses, respiratory therapists and occupational therapists. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a growing need for lower-skilled health care jobs, including assistant nurses, home health aides and other technicians, who may assume duties once performed by more highly paid workers as employers try to cut health care costs.

Overall, the bureau projects growth of 30.3 percent in the health care profession through 2014, or 4.7 million new jobs. That means one out of every five new jobs will be in health care. The numbers "are almost hard to comprehend," said Dennis Damp, author of "Health Care Job Explosion," first published in 1995 and appearing in its fourth edition in May.

In addition to filling vacancies left by retiring boomers, Damp said the need for more medical workers is because of advances in technology, the rise of obesity-related problems and the needs of an aging population. The number of Americans older than 65 is expected to grow to 40.2 million by 2010 and to 71.5 million by 2030.

Of course, college-age students contemplating careers may not give a lot of weight to labor force projections and demographics. Still, the trends create a favorable job market for young people, particularly those who are geographically flexible, said Wayne Wallace, director of the career resource center at the University of Florida.

His advice to young workers is to keep their options open.

"The odds are extremely great that you will change the job you're doing and change your career multiple times during your work life," Wallace said.

"We all have to be lifelong learners. We need to prepare for changes in our society and in our economy and be able to adapt," he said. "As you accrue ability, new avenues will open up to you. And that's actually pretty neat. It means you have a lot of freedom."

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