The Jobs of the Future
Occupations with the largest percentage growth expected through 2018:
• Biomedical Engineers 72%
• Network Systems Analysts 53%
• Home Health Aides 50%
• Personal, Home-Care Aides 46%
• Financial Examiners 41%
• Medical Scientists 40%
• Physician Assistants 39%
• Skin-Care Specialists 38%
• Biochemists, Biophysicists 37%
• Athletic Trainers 37%
The apparent premise is that continued growth in health care as a sector of the economy will generate the expected percentage growth in each job category listed. I've got bad news for these job seekers. What can't go on forever, won't go on forever. This year's health care reform law is a boon for insurers in the short term but has so many long-term disincentives for drivers of cost growth (rationing requirements will appear at some point) that the overhead represented by these jobs will eventually wither away.
The home health aide category is hilarious. Where exactly are Baby Boomers going to find the money to spend on home health aides when they haven't saved for retirement? They'll find that the wait for an assigned home health aide will be stretched out to an indefinite point under their insurance plan's rationing regime. Job seekers looking for work as home health aides are in for a shock. We may have to redefine home-based health care downward to the point that barracks-style living spaces for multitudes of seniors displaced from foreclosed retirement communities are considered "homes," because that's all that America will be able to afford in its impoverished future.
I can think of one job category that is poised for massive growth in the near future: subsistence farming. Job seekers with little education are tailor-made for that one.
