by Philo Gabriel

Created on: August 13, 2010   Last Updated: August 24, 2010

In attempting to ascertain which career fields will expand most rapidly in the coming years, while it's certainly possible just to guess on the basis of anecdote ("my sister got hired as a dog groomer, and the people she talked to said there are more and more jobs like that opening up") and common sense observations ("those virtual reality games seem really cutting edge; I'll bet there will be a lot of jobs designing those"), what's a lot better is to do some serious research and number crunching.

This is exactly what the good people at the Bureau of Labor Statistics do as a part of their job.  The Bureau's “Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-2011 Edition” is an excellent source of information and analysis concerning job trends.

One of its most valuable features is its detailed listings of job categories and their expected increase or decrease.  These projections are made on a decade-long basis, with the most recent being for the 2008-2018 period.

As a starting point for discussion, here are the top 20 such occupational categories, and the number of jobs they are projected to add over this ten year period:

Registered nurses

581,500

Home health aides

460,900

Customer service representatives

399,500

Combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food

394,300

Personal and home care aides

375,800

Retail salespersons

374,700

Office clerks, general

358,700

Accountants and auditors

279,400

Nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants

276,000

Postsecondary teachers

256,900

Construction laborers

255,900

Elementary school teachers, except special education

244,200

Truck drivers, heavy and tractor-trailer

232,900

Landscaping and groundskeeping workers

217,100

Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks

212,400

Executive secretaries and administrative assistants

204,400

Management analysts

178,300

Computer software engineers, applications

175,100

Receptionists and information clerks

172,900

Carpenters

165,400

Now let’s take a look at a few things that are striking about the expected job trends:

1.  Health care jobs are on the upswing.

A whopping four of the top nine jobs on the list are in the medical field.  Various others that made the top 20 overlap with the medical field.  (Hospitals, medical practices, health insurance companies, etc. certainly need bookkeepers, secretaries, and receptionists and the like.)  If you have any interest, any aptitude at all for working in the health care

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