10 surprises about tomorrow's job market

"There's a tremendous amount of pent-up demand to change careers," says Jim John, chief operating officer of Beyond.com, a career network based in King of Prussia, Pa. "I'm looking at résumés from people who went to law school and are looking to get into marketing."

But these workers have been at their current job long enough that starting over would now mean a steep pay cut in many cases. So workers are trying to bridge their careers. One friend who was a physician decided to go back to law school and now serves as a legal consultant on health-care issues, Mr. John says.

6. The death of a salesman hasn't happened.

The Internet Age was supposed to make salespeople obsolete. Instead, retail sales is expected to add more jobs than any profession except nursing between 2010 and 2020. Wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives (not involved in scientific or technical products) are No. 19 on the same BLS list.

And those numbers may underestimate the importance of the profession today: Many sales reps are moving from working for corporations to becoming employees to independent contractors.

"All those death notices for sales and those who do it are off the mark," writes Daniel Pink, author of "To Sell Is Human." "Indeed, if one were to write anything about selling in the second decade of the twenty-first century, it ought to be a birth announcement." In 2010, even after the worst downturn since the Great Depression, the share of Americans working in sales is the same as it was in 2000, he calculates: 1 in 9.

 7. Meet your new digital staff.

Those online networks known as social media are being used for doing more important things than simply chatting with friends. Increasingly, they're allowing workers to develop sophisticated networks of contacts who can help them carry out their jobs.

Peter Schwartz calls it being "hyperconnected." By using increasingly powerful online tools, most workers will be able to replicate having a handful of assistants who gather research, prepare for meetings, and keep their schedule. It's like having an invisible support staff, allowing people to work smarter in a Knowledge Economy.

It will result in an "enriched, empowered, highly capable, autonomous decision worker [with] more freedom, more demands, but more options," says Mr. Schwartz, senior vice president for global government relations and strategic planning for Salesforce.com, a cloud computing company based in San Francisco.

8. Don't give me that retirement wristwatch just yet.

Far from moving to early retirement, the baby boomers reaching 65 are extending their work lives. "The biggest surprise is that you're going to see many older workers," says Schwartz, who himself started a new career at 65. He cites two reasons for older people staying in the workforce: The economy needs them, and they need to earn money longer.

Nonretired adults surveyed last year by Gallup said they planned to retire on average at 67, up four years from the same survey 10 years earlier. The same survey found that only 38 percent believed they had squirreled away enough money to live comfortably.

9. More degrees doesn't always mean more pay.

There are situations in which workers with college degrees are earning less than those with only a high school diploma. For example, credit counselors typically are required to have a bachelor's degree, according to the BLS. But loan officers just need a high school diploma. Yet loan officers outearn credit counselors $56,490 to $38,140.

In all, 1 in 5 young men with a college degree and 1 in 7 young women with a college degree were earning less in 2009 than the average high school graduate, according to research by Heather Boushey of the Center for American Progress and John Schmitt of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, both in Washington.

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