Where the Jobs Are in 2011

From the Wall Street Journal By RUTH MANTELL

A good job is still hard to find for many people, though recent labor-market data indicate that the employment situation may be slowly improving.

While the economy is adding jobs at lower levels than workers would like, analysts expect buds of growth in a wide range of service jobs this year -- retail, information technology, professional, scientific and technical jobs -- as well as continuing growth in the health-care industry.

 Pete Ryan

"Primary job generation will be across a wide range of private service areas," says Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight, an economic consulting firm in Lexington, Mass.

With the aging population, health care remains the go-to field for job growth, experts say. "Health care is always adding jobs. That will clearly continue," says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington think tank.

Among the positions expected to have greater demand in coming years: nurses, medical scientists, physician assistants, skin-care specialists and dental hygienists.

Information-technology also will be adding jobs as companies that have been sitting on cash will want to upgrade their technology to gain a competitive edge as the economy emerges from the recession, says John Challenger, chief executive of outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in Chicago.

"A lot of companies over the last couple of years have cut down their spending on IT," Mr. Challenger says. "But, as we know, technology takes quantum leaps every few years. So there is technology that companies are buying, and they will need people who can come in and implement it, customize it, teach people how to use it [and] provide technical support."

Mr. Gault says there could be room for growth in financial-services jobs. "Lending activity should pick up," he says. "There will be more deal making. Companies will be raising more capital and they will need more assistance from the financial sector."

He adds that professional, scientific and technical jobs could pick up as well. "Companies will want to start to pick up research-and-development spending," Mr. Gault says, "so their need for more highly skilled workers will increase."

Another area expected to get a boost in hiring: positions that are revenue generators for a company, according to a survey of more than 2,400 hiring managers and human-resource professionals conducted in November and December for jobs website CareerBuilder.com.

Among companies that expect to increase full-time, permanent workers in 2011, here are the top areas, by function, according to the survey: sales, information technology, customer service, engineering, technology, administrative, business development, marketing, research/development and accounting/finance.

Workers in sales and marketing positions help "drive top-line growth for an organization," says Jennifer Grasz, a spokeswoman for CareerBuilder.com.

Some companies remain cautious about taking on a larger full-time staff. So analysts expect to also see growth in temporary work.

Temporary workers allow companies to fill needed positions without taking on the cost of a full-time worker. "Employers don't want to pick up costs like health care, they don't want to pick up overhead costs," says Mr. Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

According to the CareerBuilder.com survey, 34% of hiring managers say they will hire contract or temporary workers in 2011, supplementing leaner staffs. That's up from 30% in 2010 and 28% in 2009.

Many health-care, financial-services, and professional and business-services firms plan to hire temporary or contract workers, according to CareerBuilder.com.

It may be a while, however, before companies turn temp positions into permanent ones. "The labor market is still going to be very, very weak so there's not a huge incentive for companies to convert these workers into full-time workers," Mr. Gault says.

One place you won't find job growth: the public sector.

Cities and states are expected to cut staff in 2011, Mr. Challenger says. Many municipal and state budgets face the ax as federal aid dwindles.

Mr. Baker adds that there won't be much hiring on the federal level.

"The public sector is going into recession from a jobs standpoint," Mr. Challenger says. "It will lose jobs in 2011 as the country comes to terms with the deficits that are out there. There will be some places where they have no choice but to cut workers, library personnel, teachers."

Cuts also could affect nonprofits that do business with the government, says Timothy Bartik, senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Mich.

"We expect to see some weakening in state and local government," Mr. Bartik says. "A lot of state and local areas will have to make cutbacks, and that will have an impact on nonprofit agencies that contract with state and local governments."

Write to Ruth Mantell at ruth.mantell@dowjones.com

—Read more at marketwatch.com.