Technology tweaks future job market

Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be reporters.

Or, for that matter, print workers, woodworkers or electronic equipment assemblers.

At least, figure on this if they live in the Chicago metropolitan area: All of these jobs are forecast to lose workers by 2014, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

Instead, let them be nurses or network analysts or special education teachers.

The same report shows these careers to be in high demand in the next seven years.

Other jobs that are likely to be prominent in 10 to 20 years, however, may not even exist yet.

During the Future World of Work Summit recently at South Suburban College in South Holland, futurist Ed Barlow predicted 80 percent of jobs that those now in kindergarten will work in as adults may have not yet been invented.

“Jobs will be either entirely new or re-engineered in terms of skills required,” said Barlow, president of Michigan-based Creating the Future Inc.

“For instance, health care advancements may allow patients to be monitored from their homes. A nurse would need to learn how to work a virtual environment to do the job.”

It’s a high-tech world

Technology changes constantly, and with those transformations so shifts the job market.

In the Southland, this has manifested itself particularly in the manufacturing industry.

Many jobs left the area when steel mills closed or scaled back operations. Other manufacturers have outsourced work or gone to more automation to produce goods.

This situation has led to a forecast of a decrease in jobs such as plastic workers (down 6 percent,) textile workers (6 percent) and woodworkers (11 percent.)

“There are jobs in manufacturing, but skills required have changed dramatically,” said Richard Kaye, Chicago labor market economist with IDES.

“Hard, physical labor has been replaced with technological skills. Jobs are gained by obtaining such skills.”

High on the IDES list of future hot jobs in the local area in technology are software engineers (42 percent increase) and network analysts (49 percent).

A “healthy” job outlook

Ask any job market expert about projected growth in jobs, and health care nearly always tops the list. The IDES list bears out this perception.

Nursing is just one of a slew of health care professions projected to skyrocket in the next decade.

While registered nursing positions are projected to rise nearly 20 percent by 2014, physical therapy jobs will increase by 26 percent, home health aides by nearly 30 percent and medical assistants by a whopping 37 percent.

“Job growth in these professions are primarily due to an aging population,” Kaye said.

“There will be a larger number of people needing health care.”

Brent Green, author of “Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers,” said boomers’ fixation on health will lead to more jobs in preventative health. Among these, he listed: weight loss clinics, nutrition experts and organic food stores.

“Boomers focus on self-directed health care,” Green said. “The biomedical industry will also grow, giving jobs to those with engineering and science backgrounds.”

The IDES report confirms this finding with an expected 34 percent jump in biomedical engineering jobs by 2014.

Teaching jobs get high marks

Some may be surprised to learn that teaching jobs in areas such as music and art will be more plentiful.

In the metropolitan region, such positions are predicted to go up 20 percent, or 596 jobs. Vocational education are expected to bump up about the same, while special education teaching positions are projected to rise 22 percent, or 26,796 jobs.

The forecasted increases are in part due to population growth in such as areas as the southwest suburbs and Will County, Kaye said.

“More teachers will be needed. There are more students being designated as special ed, so more teachers will especially be needed there,” he said.

Best of the rest

Experts said other professions forecasted for substantial growth in the Chicago metropolitan area include positions in the leisure and hospitality field, service jobs and those in the growing field of transportation, logistics and warehousing.

“People have more harried schedules and eat out more often,” Kaye said. “Look at all the hotels being built in Chicago. The hospitality industry is big and getting bigger.”

The transformation of the U.S. economy from a manufacturing to a service economy has been well documented.

The giant intermodal facility in Elwood and another planned for Crete has local colleges offering classes in transportation, warehousing and logistics.

“There is a demand for people knowledgeable on moving products from place to place,” said Denise Rzonca, director of economic and workforce development for the Business & Career Institute at South Suburban College. The college offers a certificate program in global supply chain management.

There also will be an increase in people working for themselves. Boomers who are laid off at a later age account for 54 percent of self-employed workers, Green said.

“Some take big risks to do so, because they want to live out their lives on their own terms or leave a legacy for their offspring,” he said.

The bad “news”

Not so rosy an outlook is forecast for telecommunication jobs, such as switchboard or telephone operators, forecast to be down 14 percent and 27 percent respectively.

More modern trends on receiving news do not bode well for newspaper reporters and correspondents, predicted to be down about 4 percent. Print machine operator jobs will drop more than 7 percent by 2014. Radio and TV announcers are forecast to be down 5 percent.

“Young people don’t read newspapers as much; they get their news from other sources,” Kaye said.

Barlow predicts the era of working in a single job field in one’s life is a phenomenon of the past. He believes 18-year-olds today will work, on average, nine different jobs within four careers.

“A career in a job is a journey, not a destination,” he said.

“It requires more continuous learning than previous generations had for their particular career. Future workers should see themselves as independent contractors. They should be responsible for themselves and keep themselves employable.”

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