Mundane personal service jobs are becoming some of the fastest growing professions. Here and in my other blog, I've written about the "cool" and "creative" jobs defining the future, such as nail care, social work, and teaching. Employment in these sectors correlates more strongly to having a vagina than to having an advanced degree, but they are way too boring for any urban pundit to start writing about.
While I don't think its author is about to do a book tour, so you won't see its findings on television or in a promotional poster at Barnes & Noble, the Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook has some interesting findings. It ranks the top 10 growth professions for the next 8 years, and coming in at #8 - skin care specialist. Yes, for all the hype about "creative classes", "knowledge workers", and other sorts of nonsense, skin care is now a leading growth profession.
In addition to skin care, athletic trainer makes the list, as does home health care aide. Even the engineering jobs are mostly angled towards people and medicine, as opposed to faster computers or communications. Only 2 of the top 10 professions have anything to do with finance or IT.
Now here's what's also interesting - very few of these jobs get done by people who work for publicly traded companies. They're typically done by not-for-profits, government agencies, or small businesses. Those strip mall manicurists, athletic trainers, and physicians assistants typically work for themselves or an owner they know personally, not a publicly-traded company - an important implication for investors.
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