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January 4, 2007
There’s something about welcoming a new year that fills us all with hope. We hope that we get a raise or a promotion, we hope to have good health, and we hope that the chocolate chip cookies we consumed over the holidays aren’t going to show up on our hips.
Still, there’s always room for a little realism along with the hope. That reality check is important because it helps us prepare — and take appropriate action — for the things that may be affecting our careers and our future in the coming year.
Just the person to supply that information is Gerald Celente of The Trends Research Institute, which has been supplying predictions for more than two decades.
Celente uses a variety of information and data to make his forecasts, and has proved accurate on a number of fronts over the years. When asked about jobs, careers and business for 2007, Celente offered this:
• The biggest growth in jobs will be in the physical, mental and spiritual health fields. “It’s going to be the biggest business of the next three decades,” he says. The reason? As the baby boomers enter their retirement years, there will be greater demand for services to care for their needs, especially because they are entering their golden years in poor physical shape. “This immobile society is not aging gracefully,” he says.
• College isn’t for everyone. There is a greater interest in apprenticeships, where experienced workers train newer workers for a certain period of time, much the way tradesmen did hundreds of years ago. Celente says that for parents who can afford it, “sending a kid abroad for a while” is invaluable because it exposes them to how global competitors do business. “China is only going to grow,” he says. “I’d tell any kid to learn everything there is to know about China, and if you know the language, you’ve got a job locked in anywhere you want to go.”
• It will be more and more difficult to be a successful entrepreneur. “The zeal is there, but the cost of entry is so high,” he says. “You need hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay the government, insurance and compensation. And, if you don’t have a real niche, it’s very tough to compete against the big boys.”
• Outsourcing will grow. One of the greatest areas of growth will be “medical tourism.” Celente says that as health care costs skyrocket in the United States, more people will travel overseas to take advantage of lower medical costs for procedures. Services to support this trend — such as research of available services, air ambulances, hospital ships — will offer profitable business opportunities to entrepreneurs.
It’s a plantation economy. The workplace is not a happy place these days, mostly because while the average worker is putting in more hours and is more productive, the average commute time is longer, and the financial debt hole is deeper. At the same time, however, CEOs are making 500 times more in compensation that the average worker, compared with only 20 times the average worker’s salary in the 1960s.
“In other words, the people running it (business) are doing fine, but others are having trouble making ends meet and are not gaining any ground,” Celente says.
This is the opinion of Anita Bruzzese. She is author of “Take This Job and Thrive,” (Impact Publications, $14.95). Write to her care of Business Editor, Gannett News Service, 7950 Jones Branch Drive, McLean, VA 22107. For a reply, include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
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