Lindsey Pollak’s 2011 Career Trends (and Jason Alba’s Predictions)

Lindsey Pollak, author and speaker on all-things-career, has a three trends she listed on Manpower’s blog (read her post and reasoning here):

1. The job market is not improving fast enough for most Americans.
2. Fortunately, recent grad hiring is a bright spot.
3. Job categories are being forever changed.

I agree with her first point.

I think her second point is only because last year, recent grad hiring was so low that anything will be a bright spot compared to last year. She mentions a study that says there is an 11+% increase in hiring for recent grads from last year, but the question is, does that bring us back to normal?

I agree with her last point.

Here’s what I predict:

The economy is going to continue to be in the toilet, despite any reports otherwise.  There will be too many job seekers, too many laid off people, and way too much age discrimination.

I don’t think employers are going to hire normal employees like they have because it is so expensive.  Between healthcare, benefits, etc. it is just too expensive.  So temp employees (read #3 on Lindsey’s post) will be where it’s at.   This is not too bad as a temp employee (freelancer/contractor) can ask for significantly more money than what you’d get per hour as a salaried employee.

I think we’ll see a lot more people go the freelancer/contractor route, as well as try their hand at a business idea.  That’s what I predict for this year.

And maybe more of the deinstitutionalization of the corporate structure, as we know it.

What do you think?