What jobs will be in great demand over the next five to 10 years?  For now industries like manufacturing often have a bad rapt for shedding so many jobs over the past 10 years or so.  When in fact there are many manufacturing companies across the country that is having a terrible time filling their open positions.  Since I live in the Pittsburgh area, historically a very strong manufacturing town, I consistently hear from manufactures about how they cannot find qualified people to work in their companies.

I came across an article on Yahoo.com about a manufacturing plant in Emmaus Pennsylvania that is looking for a specialized group of welders.  This company is actually turning down business because of their struggle in finding qualified talent.  One of the major complaints job seekers expound is the lack of open positions when in fact the real problem is lack of positions they are qualified for.  There a ton of open positions within companies all over the world, the hard part is finding qualified people to work in these positions.

If you are looking for a job are you willing to re-tool or get some additional training in an industry like manufacturing?  A lot of manufacturing companies have apprenticeship or training programs that will give you the opportunity to get paid while you train.  Many of these jobs in manufacturing require extensive technical training that many college graduates did not receive if they majored in anything other than engineering or IT.

The jobs of the future will most likely be in advanced manufacturing, robotics, healthcare, nanotechnology, MEMS, and of course information technology.  All very technically focused.  However, our great country is facing a challenge when it comes to having enough qualified candidates to work in these fields in 2006; how do you think it is going to be in 2020?