The workplace of today….

...New Challenges, New Opportunities...

"Just as the car made it possible for people to live far from their work, so E-mail and related technologies let people both live and work anywhere. It's tearing apart the organizational structures of the last century.... The Federal Department of Transportation projects that as many as 15 million workers will telecommute in 2002, a gain of 650 percent from 1992." (Rachel Adelson, "The Evolution of E-mail," Forecast, May/June 1996)

We had better "just accept the fact that our careers will be lived out in a state of constant transition. We should prepare for a work environment that is fluid, fuzzy, and fast. We'll be surrounded by uncertainty and instability." (Price Pritchett, MindShift)

"…80 percent of the jobs available in the United States within 20 years will be cerebral, and only 20 percent manual, the exact opposite of the ratio in 1900.... There are already more computer-literate first graders than there are computer-literate first grade teachers." (Jennifer James, Thinking in the Future Tense)

According to the U.S. Commerce Department, "information technology (IT) industries accounted for over one third of national economic growth in the 1995 -- 1998 period. Nearly half of all workers will hold IT-related jobs within the next seven years." (Term July-August 1999)

These points are listed to give you a feel for what is happening today in the world of work. (Click here to read more about what is happening today.)

…New Careers

Let's look at some job titles or new careers that exist today. You may not have heard of most of these jobs, much less know what they are...but these are the types of jobs that your children may be thinking about really soon!

Affirmative Action Specialist	Air Monitoring Technician
Apparel Standards Technician	Banking/Finance Relationship Manager
Bioinformatic Specialist	Biology Technician
Community Practitioner	Content Manager
Control Systems Technician	Director of Networks
Electroneurodiagnostic Technologist	Environmental Accountant
Executive Recruiter	Health Information Technician
HMO Social Worker	Industrial Hygiene Technician
Industrial Safety Specialist	Information Center Specialist
Information Technology Consultant	LAN/WAN Specialist
Machining Production Specialist	Microwave Field Technician
Network Architect	Online Research Analyst
Rehabilitation Specialist	Science Technician
Sleep Technician	Technical Writer Web Specialist

Many new careers are in the mid-level technologies, jobs requiring a technical education in specialized programs up to and including an associate degree. New careers job titles often end in "specialist" or "technician", since these jobs require specific skills and technical training. The Career Spotlights section of this website features some of these careers.