PALO ALTO, Ca. ? Six career areas provide a snapshot of the new economy in 2013, says Apollo Research Institute, including healthcare and information technology.

Tracey Wilen-Daugenti, Vice President and Managing Director, Apollo Research Institute, looked into her crystal ball and made the following predictions:

Six career areas provide a snapshot of the new economy: business services, education, healthcare, IT, nonprofits, and manufacturing. Healthcare, the fastest-growing sector in the nation, offers obvious opportunities, but less intuitive choices such as nonprofits?which will need a projected 80,000 senior managers a year by 2016?also offer attractive prospects.

?The Healthcare Act will be a big factor in creating these jobs,? she said. ?We see healthcare getting moved into the community. We see an increase in the need for healthcare aides, nurses, support systems. We see a shift where older people, particularly the Baby Boomers, will want to get healthcare services, including pharmacy services, delivered to them in their homes in a private concierge manner.?

Apollo predicts there will be a shortage of physicians to accommodate the aging U.S. population, so extended care teams will be created to compensate. The aging of America also will require more health insurance experts to interrupt the new laws.

The shifting of care from hospitals to homes will create a demand for remote health care call centers where patients can phone in, rather than drop in. All this increased technology will require that nurses get more training and advanced degrees, she said. The Associates degree will become a bachelor?s degree in nursing, with increased technical proficiency. Technology also will allow care givers to better correlate patent treatments to reduce mistakes.

?We need geezers to take care of geezers,? she said. ?There will be a lot of us that need a lot of healthcare or alternatives as we age. Preventative health is on the rise. People want to have an alternative.?

Other drivers of technology jobs will be the rapidly increasing number of small to medium-sized businesses, Wilen-Daugenti said.

?There will be increased demand for IT support people to develop infrastructure,? she said. ?Some of it could be care groups, or physicians groups. Seventy-five percent of jobs in the U.S. will have a tech component by 2020.?

For example, she sees an expansion of IT organizations like Best Buy?s Geek Squad and Apple?s Genius program. Yet another trend Apollo has identified is growth in non-profit jobs.

?Women, and generation X and Y people are looking for a work environment that better integrates good with work,? she said. ?They want to work for someone doing good.?

Another trend is women?s career paths will zig and zag. Fifty-eight percent of women describe their career path as ?nonlinear,? and nearly 90 percent of women executives and managers shift careers in midlife. As women and younger workers look for new ways to blend work, family and other life pursuits, the career ladder will gave way to a labyrinth of stops, starts, and lateral moves.

Apollo is publishing a book in January that will explore this trend in more detail, she said. But preliminary research shows women are increasingly leading the charge in developing alternative work styles. The book is called Women Lead: Career Perspectives from Workplace Leaders.

?Younger people today will live to 100, so have to work longer,? she said. ?A 50-year work life will be the new norm. There will be a much longer ramp to do lots of different things. Jobs, college, startups, raise a family, work in corporate sector, in the non-corporate sector. On the corporate side, lateral moves will be integrated into performance opportunities and leadership roles.

?A woman starts a business somewhere in the world every 60 seconds,? Wilen-Daugenti said. ?The internet has provided much lower barriers to entry. They can start a business without large funders behind them. You can open a store front on eBay and start conducting international business in an hour. Women are on the forefront of social media.?

Instant fact-checking and counter-claims on social media are not just limited to political scandals and natural disasters. Lying on your resume can hamper your job prospects, but some studies indicate more than 40 percent of employment applications contain false credentials. Today?s workers must present themselves factually and appropriately online, and provide proper attribution for their work.

?Reference checks will be more behavioral. You?ll be forced to give tangible examples of how you achieved success in last position.?

The competition for skilled workers provides an incentive to keep learning, on and off the job. Workers will pursue certifications, degrees, technical training, and leadership development to keep their skills current, and will look for internships, apprenticeships, and job rotations to gain hands-on experience.

?If you went to college in 60s, 70s, or 80s, will that education last a career where you?re working until 2030? she asked. ?You spend at least a third of a day working. Shouldn?t you spend at least an hour each day thinking through your whole future??

Apollo Research Institute is a nonpartisan research division of Apollo Group, Inc. Apollo Research Institute conducts research on issues of critical importance to higher education and the workforce, and provides research-based recommendations to help leaders ensure today?s workers remain employable tomorrow.