The median household salary is $48,201, according to the 2006 U.S. Census Bureau report. This makes the average hourly rate $23.17 based on a 40-hour workweek.

Positions earning between $20 and $30 per hour and experiencing job growth through 2016, based on data from the Bureau of Labor & Statistics include:

Fortune 1000 rank: 16
Best Companies rank: 67
No. of U.S. employees: 17,488
Most common salaried job: Store Manager - Retail
Avg. pay in that job: $97,730

What makes it so great? Largest oil refiner in North America makes its corporate jet available for employees with medical emergencies and covers 100% of health insurance premiums.

Fortune 1000 rank: 20
Best Companies rank: 9
No. of U.S. employees: 13,764
Most common salaried job: Other Exempt (Analysts, Program Analysts, Associates, and Professional Non-Exempt)
Avg. pay in that job: $137,000

What makes it so great? It was a rough year for Wall Street, but Goldman had record sales and profits. Comp and benefits rose 23% from the previous year, to $20.19 billion.

Fortune 1000 rank: 44
Best Companies rank: 86
No. of U.S. employees: 47,645
Most common salaried job: Software Development Engineer
Avg. pay in that job: N.A.

What makes it so great? Software behemoth offers 2,300 different courses; training consumes 3% of budget. It has expanded the campus to include 5.5 million square feet of new office space.

Fortune 1000 rank: 68
Best Companies rank: 97
No. of U.S. employees: 228,211
Most common salaried job: Operations Manager-FedEx Express
Avg. pay in that job: $76,751

What makes it so great? Firm continues a no-layoff philosophy, offers health insurance to retirees and part-timers, and promotes from within (90% of FedEx Express managers worked their way up).

Fortune 1000 rank: 71
Best Companies rank: 6
No. of U.S. employees: 32,160
Most common salaried job: Software Engineer IV
Avg. pay in that job: $132,004

What makes it so great? Though the stock flatlined in 2007, CEO John Chambers won praise for his leadership and his new blog, On My Mind, which solicits employee ideas.

Fortune 1000 rank: 75
Best Companies rank: 62
No. of U.S. employees: 30,162
Most common salaried job: Team Leader Operations
Avg. pay in that job: $55,620

What makes it so great? Big plus in working here is the ability to move around. AmEx had 6,000 internal job moves last year, including many overseas, where the majority of employees work.

Fortune 1000 rank: 107
Best Companies rank: 91
No. of U.S. employees: 142,084
Most common salaried job: Store Manager
Avg. pay in that job: $107,280

What makes it so great? Workers tell us the company and associates rally behind anyone confronted with an illness or a personal problem. Some 20,000 have worked here more than ten years.

Fortune 1000 rank: 150
Best Companies rank: 1
No. of U.S. employees: 8,134
Most common salaried job: N.A.
Avg. pay in that job: N.A.

What makes it so great? Back in our No. 1 spot, Google continued to mint millionaires as the stock cracked $700. The company gives stock options to 99% of employees.

Fortune 1000 rank: 153
Best Companies rank: 82
No. of U.S. employees: 14,570
Most common salaried job: Manager/Department Retail
Avg. pay in that job: $39,046

What makes it so great? Four times a year, staff at the sports-crazed company are invited to an all-employee meeting; those completing their tenth year are invited to the Decathletes Dinner.

Fortune 1000 rank: 165
Best Companies rank: 30
No. of U.S. employees: 4,475
Most common salaried job: Supervisor, Operations
Avg. pay in that job: $58,487

What makes it so great? Insurer boasts a top comp package - pension, profit sharing, 401(k) match - and in 2008 will offer shareholders a rare "say on pay" vote.

Fortune 1000 rank: 185
Best Companies rank: 100
No. of U.S. employees: 15,051
Most common salaried job: Electrical Design Engineer
Avg. pay in that job: $116,636

What makes it so great? Diversity isn't just a buzzword at Texas Instruments. Minorities account for 40% of employee population at the electronics company; 10% are African Americans.

Fortune 1000 rank: 197
Best Companies rank: 72
No. of U.S. employees: 123,203
Most common salaried job: Sales Manager
Avg. pay in that job: $56,382

What makes it so great? J.W. Marriott Jr., the 75-year-old CEO, visits some 250 hotels a year, meeting with employees. The hotel chain's turnover rate is among the lowest in the field (18%).

Fortune 1000 rank: 214
Best Companies rank: 69
No. of U.S. employees: 17,090
Most common salaried job: Retail Sales Representative
Avg. pay in that job: $43,922

What makes it so great? Of the women who went on maternity leave last year, 96% returned, helped by a new policy enabling them to phase back to work on a part-time basis for eight weeks.

Fortune 1000 rank: 221
Best Companies rank: 48
No. of U.S. employees: 3,368
Most common salaried job: Engineer
Avg. pay in that job: $173,057

What makes it so great? Bonuses gush at Devon , the nation's largest independent oil and natural gas producer. Average bonus in 2006 was $21,332; the median was $9,000.

Fortune 1000 rank: 242
Best Companies rank: 21
No. of U.S. employees: 13,438
Most common salaried job: IT Application Analyst Sr.
Avg. pay in that job: $95,308

What makes it so great? A new child-care center is in the works, you can buy extra time off, and the majority get retirement benefits of 100% of income.

Fortune 1000 rank: 277
Best Companies rank: 7
No. of U.S. employees: 134,013
Most common salaried job: Store Manager
Avg. pay in that job: $45,713

What makes it so great? Rapid expansion led to a difficult year, but the stock rose 9% on January news that founder Howard Schultz is taking over the CEO post.

Fortune 1000 rank: 297
Best Companies rank: 8
No. of U.S. employees: 10,095
Most common salaried job: Engineer, Senior
Avg. pay in that job: $97,641

What makes it so great? New employees get stock options and 100% health insurance coverage. The popular onsite primary-care clinic is quadrupling in size.

Fortune 1000 rank: 299
Best Companies rank: 36
No. of U.S. employees: 49,769
Most common salaried job: Sales Department Manager
Avg. pay in that job: $48,500

What makes it so great? Retailer has an excellent record in advancement of women: 63% of execs and senior managers are female; 117 of 157 stores are managed by women.

Fortune 1000 rank: 316
Best Companies rank: 98
No. of U.S. employees: 29,554
Most common salaried job: Store Manager
Avg. pay in that job: $68,513

What makes it so great? The 142-year-old paint company wants recruits for the long haul: 10% of workforce has more than 20 years' service; 30%, more than ten years. CEO Chris Connor is a 25-year vet.

Fortune 1000 rank: 324
Best Companies rank: 61
No. of U.S. employees: 5,752
Most common salaried job: Toolpusher
Avg. pay in that job: $108,031

What makes it so great? Co-founder Aubrey McClendon meets every new employee. He okayed an employee-proposed child-care center, but doubled its size and cut the fee in half.

Fortune 1000 rank: 326
Best Companies rank: 68
No. of U.S. employees: 7,769
Most common salaried job: Software Engineer 4
Avg. pay in that job: $125,889

What makes it so great? The auctioneer's HQ boasts perks like golf lessons, bike repair, and a dentist, plus prayer and meditation rooms. Four-week paid sabbaticals every five years are also offered.

Fortune 1000 rank: 333
Best Companies rank: 46
No. of U.S. employees: 14,223
Most common salaried job: Merchandising Associate
Avg. pay in that job: $58,113

What makes it so great? Unusual no-haggle policy, onsite nurses available at 11 locations, and a diverse staff have made the nation's largest used-car dealer a friendly place to work.

Fortune 1000 rank: 353
Best Companies rank: 87
No. of U.S. employees: 7,915
Most common salaried job: Technical Yahoo
Avg. pay in that job: $116,250

What makes it so great? Founder Jerry Yang returned as Chief Yahoo after the stock fell by almost 9% in 2007. He hosts monthly Chat 'n Chow lunches and answers employee questions online.

Fortune 1000 rank: 369
Best Companies rank: 16
No. of U.S. employees: 41,385
Most common salaried job: Associate Store Team Leader
Avg. pay in that job: $70,609

What makes it so great? This beloved natural and organic foods retailer opened a record 21 new stores in 2007, and also acquired Wild Oats in a $565 million deal.

Fortune 1000 rank: 413
Best Companies rank: 70
No. of U.S. employees: 5,000
Most common salaried job: Project Designer
Avg. pay in that job: $81,741

What makes it so great? The toy giant returns to our list after a hiatus of ten years, with CEO Bob Eckert getting kudos for quick and responsible actions in recalling defective toys from

China

Fortune 1000 rank: 520
Best Companies rank: 54
No. of U.S. employees: 15,674
Most common salaried job: Project Manager
Avg. pay in that job: $100,998

What makes it so great? Employees own all the stock in this engineering-construction firm, which does everything from decommission nuclear plants to help London gear up for the 2012 Olympics.

Fortune 1000 rank: 651
Best Companies rank: 40
No. of U.S. employees: 3,900
Most common salaried job: Computer Scientist
Avg. pay in that job: $137,691

What makes it so great? A culture of openness pervades this software developer: The CEO answers e-mails within 24 hours, and employee councils feed management with ideas.

Fortune 1000 rank: 709
Best Companies rank: 14
No. of U.S. employees: 4,481
Most common salaried job: MTS Software 4
Avg. pay in that job: $129,689

What makes it so great? Execs are "easy to approach" at this data-storage company. Responding to feedback, NetApp introduced an autism benefit that 28 staffers have used.

Fortune 1000 rank: 720
Best Companies rank: 74
No. of U.S. employees: 4,650
Most common salaried job: Engineer
Avg. pay in that job: $77,561

What makes it so great? Builder of roads, bridges, and dams has a zero-accident goal. One worker told us, "If you or anybody feels something is unsafe, you will not be fired. You will be rewarded."

Fortune 1000 rank: 724
Best Companies rank: 43
No. of U.S. employees: 7,635
Most common salaried job: Software Engineer
Avg. pay in that job: N.A.

What makes it so great? All new employees get options at this financial-software maker, and everyone gets four days off with pay each year to perform community service.

Fortune 1000 rank: 852
Best Companies rank: 47
No. of U.S. employees: 3,042
Most common salaried job: Production Supervisor
Avg. pay in that job: $52,732

What makes it so great? Job seekers at this 111-year-old family firm are interviewed by eight to ten people. Once hired, they stay; 25% of the workforce has been here more than 16 years.

Fortune 1000 rank: 914
Best Companies rank: 96
No. of U.S. employees: 6,063
Most common salaried job: Engineer 3
Avg. pay in that job: $66,901

What makes it so great? The furniture pioneer values its history: 23% of the workforce is classified as "water carriers," people who have 20-plus years and carry the culture forward.

Fortune 1000 rank: 921
Best Companies rank: 51
No. of U.S. employees: 11,622
Most common salaried job: Sales Representative
Avg. pay in that job: N.A.

What makes it so great? With more than 100 locations offering payroll services for small and medium-sized businesses, training is key. The average: 107 hours per employee.

The first of the 76 million or so baby boomers who will be hitting traditional retirement age of 62 in the next two decades are doing so now. If all of these boomers decide to stop working when they hit this milestone, businesses will need to scramble to fill the gaps, since the succeeding generation of workers is much smaller.

Not all businesses are planning for the coming shortage. In fact, in a Manpower study of 1,000 U.S. employers last year, 78% had no concern that an aging workforce could hamper recruitment and retention of talented workers. Just 28% have a strategy to retain workers past retirement age and only 18% have an older-worker recruitment strategy.

"Businesses are slowly becoming aware that older workers tend to have highly desirable attributes," says Robert Skladany, vice president of research and certification at Waltham, Mass.-based RetirementJobs.com, a national job clearinghouse focused specifically on jobs for people 50 and older.

RetirementJobs runs an "Age Friendly Employer Certification" program that recognizes employers who meet their best practices, from management style to recruiting practices, flexible scheduling, and health care benefits. Some companies that make the grade include banks like Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, as well as retailers like Starbucks and Target.

Based on information from jobs posted on the site, and from the feedback of job seekers, RetirementJobs produced a list of the 20 best jobs for retirees. Skladany says the jobs were scored on the desirability of the work, the pay, and whether they were obtainable.

FORBES 2000 COMPANIES THAT ARE HIRING IN 2008

The following Forbes 2000 Companies plan to hire in 2008.

G4S
Industry: Business services & supplies
Employees: 4401 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 44 (thou)
Change: 11.2%
U.K.
Formed in 2004 from the merger between Securicor and Group 4 Falck A/S's security business, G4S is the world's leading provider of security solutions and operates in more than 100 countries. It has more than 500,000 employees and is the largest employer listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Gazprom
Industry: Oil & gas operations
Employees: 440 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 38 (thou)
Change: 9.5%
RU
The Russian energy company has around 400,000 employees and is the world's largest gas company, exporting to 32 countries.

IBM
Industry: Software & services
Employees: 387 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 31 (thou)
Change: 8.7%
U.S.
"Big Blue," the Armonk, N.Y.-headquartered technology company, has 386,558 employees worldwide and serves customers in 170 countries. In 2007, for the 15th consecutive year, IBM was issued more U.S. patents (3,125) than any other company.

Hitachi
Industry: Technology hardware & equip
Employees: 384 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 29 (thou)
Change: 8.0%
JA
The Japanese consumer electronics manufacturer and technology company was founded in 1910 as an electrical repair shop and today employs around 385,000 people worldwide.

Metro AG
Industry: Food markets
Employees: 2422 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 27 (thou)
Change: 12.7%
GE
International trade and retail outfit Metro AG employs almost 300,000 worldwide. More than half of them work abroad from its Germany-based core in any of 30 different countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. The company runs over 12 million square-feet of retail space and generated about $100 billion in sales last year.

Starbucks
Industry: Hotels, restaurants & leisure
Employees: 172 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 26 (thou)
Change: 18.0%
U.S.
Founded in 1971, the Seattle-based coffee giant has over 15,000 stores and more than 170,000 partners (employees) in 44 countries. Through Starbucks Entertainment and Hear Music, the company also distributes books, music and media. It is set to open around 2,000 stores this year.

China Resources Ent
Industry: Conglomerates
Employees: 113 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 23 (thou)
Change: 25.6%
HK
The Hong Kong-based organization focuses on the consumer businesses in both the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong, with core activities being retail, beverage, food processing and distribution, textile and investment property. The Company employs around 113,000 staff, of which more than 93% are working in the Chinese mainland.

Tata Consultancy
Industry: Software & services
Employees: 86 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 23 (thou)
Change: 36.2%
IN
The Indian information technology services, business solutions and outsourcing organization employs more than 108,000 IT consultants in 47 countries and had annual worldwide sales of $4.3 billion (for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2007).

Honda Motor
Industry: Consumer durables
Employees: 167 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 22 (thou)
Change: 15.5%
JA
The Japanese maker of motorcycles--the world's largest-- as well as automobiles and other power products was founded in 1948 and has around 180,000 employees, and some 500 subsidiaries, worldwide.

Wipro
Industry: Software & services
Employees: 75 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 22 (thou)
Change: 40.7%
IN
Wipro Technologies is a global services provider delivering technology-driven business solutions and says it is the world's largest independent research and development services provider. It has more than 72,000 employees operating 53 development centers worldwide.

TNT
Industry: Transportation
Employees: 162 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 22 (thou)
Change: 16.1%
NE
The mail and express delivery company operates in more than 200 countries and employs more than 161,500 people. Over 2007, TNT reported 11 billion euros in revenues and an operating income of 1,192 million euros. TNT is publicly listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange.

BNP Paribas
Industry: Banking
Employees: 163 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 21 (thou)
Change: 14.6%
FR
BNP Paribas is the world's sixth-largest bank. It operates in more than 85 countries and has 162,700 employees including 126,600 in Europe--19,900 of whom are in Italy and 64,100 in France and in the Overseas Departments; 15,000 in North America and 8,800 in Asia.

Saint-Gobain
Industry: Construction
Employees: 2071 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 21 (thou)
Change: 11.0%
FR
This French multinational corporation, with its headquarters in Paris, produces a range of construction, glass, packaging and high-performance materials. It employs about 200,000 people worldwide.

Coca-Cola
Industry: Food, drink & tobacco
Employees: 91 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 20 (thou)
Change: 27.5%
U.S.
The Atlanta-headquartered beverage company--the world's largest producer of non-alcoholic drinks--operates in more than 200 countries and employ 90,500 associates worldwide. In 2007, the company's net operating revenues grew 20% to $28.9 billion, and operating income grew 15% to $7.3 billion.

Kroger
Industry: Food markets
Employees: 310 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 20 (thou)
Change: 6.9%
U.S.
In the U.S., Kroger operates more than 2,500 grocery stores, nearly 800 convenience stores, 400-plus jewelry stores, nearly 500 supermarket fuel centers and 42 manufacturing facilities in 32 states; employing more than 290,000 associates.

Toshiba
Industry: Technology hardware & equip
Employees: 191 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 19 (thou)
Change: 10.9%
JA
The Toshiba Corporation is the world's ninth-largest integrated manufacturer of electric and electronic equipment, with some 161,000 employees worldwide and consolidated annual sales of over US$53 billion.

Oracle
Industry: Software & services
Employees: 75 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 19 (thou)
Change: 33.0%
U.S.
Larry Ellison started the technology company three decades ago and remains its CEO. His company now employs more than 50,000 people at offices in 145 countries.

Veolia Environnement
Industry: Utilities
Employees: 2841 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 24
Change: 9.2%
FR
The company specializes in outsourced management of water and wastewater services for local authorities, industrial and service sector clients. Veolia Water is also a world leader in the design, build and operation of facilities for water and wastewater systems using a wide variety of technologies. It employs around 300,000 people worldwide.

Dell
Industry: Technology hardware & equip
Employees: 862 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 17 (thou)
Change: 24.7%
U.S.
The Texas-based company manufactures and distributes computers and other technology products. It employs some 95,000 people worldwide. In 2007, the company opened stores in Budapest and Moscow.

Flextronics Intl
Industry: Technology hardware & equip
Employees: 116 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 17 (thou)
Change: 17.2%
SI
Headquartered in Singapore, Flextronics is a leading Electronics Manufacturing Services provider focused on delivering complete design, engineering and manufacturing services. It has production operations in more than 30 countries.

PepsiCo
Industry: Food, drink & tobacco
Employees: 185 (thou)
1-Year Incr.: 17 (thou)
Change: 10.1%
U.S.
Even though some of its brand names are more than 100 years old, PepsiCo was founded in 1965 following the merger of Pepsi and Frito-Lay. Its products are available in more than 200 countries. The beverage and foodstuffs company employs more than 153,000 employees around the world.

This year’s pharma ranking has a few interesting surprises (the first of which is that Pfizer is no longer the absolute leader in sales). Pfizer has been surpassed by Johnson & Johnson. It is further expected that Pfizer will further drop in the rankings as the worldwide impact of its largest drugs become generic due to patent expiration.

To be fair, the sales represented below are not just pharma (drug) sales. They also include other health care-related products such as diagnostics, medical devices, and nutritional products. It’s not quite an apples-to-apples comparison. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating guide for us into the ups and downs of these companies.

Almost all the companies have grown by aggressive multiple-company acquisitions with perhaps the exception being Takeda. It has relied for the most part on internal growth (though it has become aggressive in product licensing in recent years). Here are some salient facts:

1. There are five U.S. companies in the top 10 companies and 12 U.S. companies within the top 25 companies with the Midwest having three of those companies (Abbott, Lilly and Baxter).

3. There are now four Japanese companies in the top 25 companies (but none yet in the top 10 companies). Interestingly, the U.S. headquarters of two of these Japanese companies (Takeda and Astellas) is in the Midwest .

4. There is one Israeli company (TEVA) in the top 25 companies (which not so coincidentally has the highest growth rate of any of the companies at 58 percent).

5. There are two biotech companies in the top 25 companies: Amgen and Genentech (Roche owns a significant chunk of Genentech).

Though a number of American companies bought into the fast-growing Indian pharma market via local acquisitions, the large Indian pharma companies themselves were active in expanding presence in both the U.S. and Europe . Continuing this trend, just last week the Indian pharma company Wockhardt acquired the pediatric generic pharma company Morton Grove Pharmaceuticals in Chicago for less than $100 million.

What drives all this activity is the worldwide pharma market, which had sales of $604.5 billion in 2006 and grew about 8 percent.

The slowdown in the Japanese market has to do with the Japanese government’s concern about the rising cost of health care. This includes its moves to cap the growth and cost of pharmaceuticals by its continued policy of biannual, across-the-board price cuts along with its newer policy of allowing for generic drugs to play a central role for the first time.

As a result of this, there will continue to be further consolidation of Japanese pharma. Just one example is the recent acquisition of Kyowa Hakko Kogyo in 2007 by Kirin Brewery.

The Asia Pacific market growth is principally being driven by the growth of both India and China . The Canadian market growth is in part due to the strong revaluation of the Canadian currency to the U.S. dollar along with the growth of the Canadian biotech industry. The Latin American market reflects the growth of both the Brazilian and Mexican markets.

Another recent article by pharma market research giant IMS Health predicts a number of things about the world pharma market:

1. Overall market growth will begin to further slow from the 8 percent seen this year to 6 percent to 7 percent next year and 5 percent to 6 percent in 2008.

2. This growth slowdown most impacts the U.S. and Europe where $20 billion a year of annual drug sales will disappear due to patent expiration of blockbuster drugs. Pfizer will be particularly affected.

3. As a result, the overall U.S. share of the world pharma market will most likely drop its share to under 40 percent and eventually even 33 percent of the world market.

4. Though 29 new drugs are expected to be approved and launched next year, most of these drugs will not be blockbusters. As they are for less common diseases, they are not replacing the lost sales of blockbuster patent expirations.

5. The growth of the generic pharma business (representing about 60 percent of the actual volume of drug sales and prescriptions) will continue.

As an industry that has traditionally invested heavily in R&D (in great part due to the long time and high cost it takes to develop and bring a new drug to the marketplace), this year’s ranking of pharma R&D expense and investment is an important indicator of the industry.

The leading Big Pharma companies have R&D expenses larger than the total revenues of many of the rest of the pharma companies. As pharma R&D is incredibly intense and competitive, R&D growth levels continue to outpace sales growth.

Remember that this heavy investment in new products doesn’t mean that the drugs come from internal company development. About 45 percent (and even more in some companies) of drug sales and drug development expenses come from in-licensed or acquired drugs. This trend is likely to continue.

There will be a real transformation of the U.S. pharma industry over the next few years not unlike the transformation under way in the U.S. auto industry. It doesn’t help that the U.S. currency is so weak these days as it makes it even more attractive for foreign companies to gobble up weaker, smaller pharma companies in the U.S.

I submit that we will see a major Indian pharma company within the ranks of the top 50 pharma companies very shortly. The sales of the No. 50 company (Lundbeck, which is a Danish company) at $1.6 billion a year will shortly be surpassed by either Ranbaxy, Dr. Reddy, Cipla, Sun Pharma or other Indian companies.

2007: THE BEST AND WORST OF TIMES FOR BIG PHARMA

The car The Korean car companies followed the Japanese “generic car” strategy in the 1990s with low end cheap cars which enabled them to snare a key component of the marketplace and build market share. It helped to offer a 10 year product guarantee, an industry first, as a marketing ploy. Now the Korean car companies are firmly entrenched in the U.S. market and, like the Japanese moving up the quality (and pricing) stream.

The next onslaught of car companies will clearly be the Chinese and the Indians, and they may be attacking multiple segments at once: Chrysler with the Chinese company Chery on the low end, the Tata Group (if they win the bidding) with Jaguar, and another Chinese group with MG (to be produced in the U.S.).

U.S. auto industry vs. U.S. pharma industry

By now we are several paragraphs into a column that is normally about the life science industry (and occasionally rock n' roll), and you are wondering where I am going. Well, lessons learned from the car industry are extremely relevant to the U.S. and world pharmaceutical (and biotech industry) today.

In fact, the U.S. Pharma industry is older than the U.S. car industry having gotten its start in the U.S. as early as the 1870s (the Japanese Pharma company Takeda actually started in the 1700's), but really accelerated its growth during World War II when the U.S. Government asked for assistance in developing the first major antibiotic: penicillin.

Like the car industry, many well-known U.S. Pharma companies and brands have and will continue to disappear; names such as: Rorer, A.H. Robbins, G.D. Searle, Upjohn, Parke-Davis, Warner-Lambert, Lederle, Sterling-Winthrop, Richardson Merrell, Carter-Wallace, and others.

Like the car industry, U.S. Pharma is under siege by “generic” competition coming from Asia, including globalizing Japanese and Indian companies (China is still the sleeping Pharma giant-in-the-making).

The pharma industry, due to its much longer product development cycle (12-15 years versus 3-4 years in the car industry) and much higher regulation by governments around the world (the FDA and its multiple foreign counterparts), is inherently a much riskier business, and this risk is protected to some degree by intellectual property laws allowing these companies to operate like quasi-monopolies for 5-10 year period. However, when the monopoly time offered by patents ends, Big Pharma is today at full risk of rapidly losing business at a rate that would make car companies shutter.

A recent article in the Wall St. Journal (Dec. 6th) commented that between 2007 and 2012 more than 3 dozen drugs would lose patent protection wiping out $67 billion per year in annual Pharma sales during those years. The impact will be so great that the worldwide Pharma industry will actually decline in 2011 and 2012.

American Pharma companies like Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Merck, Wyeth, Schering-Plough, Abbott Labs, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, are at tremendous risk and exposure, but so are some of their European counterparts such as Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, and AstraZeneca.

The Pharma industry has already announced job layoffs of at least 21,000 employees during 2007, and shedding of plants, R&D centers, offices, etc., in preparation for this huge downtick in profits and sales. And this is only the start! Pfizer is expected to shed close to 35,000 employees from its peak of almost 125,000 employees in 2003 to projected levels of around 80,000 in 2008, according to another WSJ article on December 11th. At least an additional 50,000 industry positions will be eliminated from Big Pharma over the next 10 years.

The beneficiaries of this patent expiration of major Pharma drugs will be firstly consumers in the U.S. and around the world, as costly medicines will become more affordable, and secondly, generic Pharma companies (some of which are American, an Israeli leader - Teva, and mostly Indian Pharma companies).

The first onslaught of generic drugs will focus on the traditional Pharma products, called “small molecule drugs” based on traditional chemistry. This type of product is at the core of Big Pharma's drug pipeline and will radically reshape the companies named above.

But the second, almost equally devastating onslaught will face the “large molecule” drugs invented by the biotech industry which are now reaching the end of their patent life but are still protected by the FDA's inability to come up with a regulatory process on how to approve these “biological” drugs. Companies like Amgen, Genentech, Biogen Idec, and some of the Big Pharma companies who were their marketing partners, will be severely impacted. We witnessed such impact earlier this year when Amgen announced its first-time ever employee-layoff.

These biotech giants have learned how to acquire and develop the newer large molecule drugs much quicker than Big Pharma, and already has the manufacturing and R&D infrastructure in place. Big Pharma shedding its traditional R&D and manufacturing infrastrastructure focused on chemistry and chemists. According to the WSJ again, the Pharma industry employed 140,000 chemists in 2003 which was down to 116,000 chemists in 2006. The number of biologists (critical for the discovery and development of “biological drugs”), however, is on the rise, from 112,000 to 116,000.

Big Pharma, in its panic to replace upcoming lost sales is trying all kinds of strategies, including:

• Product acquisitions.

• Company acquisitions.

• Ethical to OTC switch of products by regulatory authorities.

• Raising drug prices (63 percent since 2002).

Again, according to the WSJ articles, Big Pharma has spent $76 billion since 2005 to buy biotech companies. During the first 9 months of 2007, there were 49 deals totaling $28.7 billion (including the $15.6 billion acquisition of MedImmune by AstraZeneca).

Merck, in order to protect its blockbuster cholesterol-reduction drug Mevacor, has tried several times to seek FDA authorization to sell this product over-the-counter (OTC) without physician prescription. This Ethical-to-OTC Switch, while still representing a loss in sales and profits, provides a much safer and managed decline in profits and sales, and could provide a pathway for other similar drugs called statins with current annual sales of over $16 billion/year, sold by Pfizer and other companies (e.g. the drug Liptor).

Merck's goal, in addition to managing product decline, was to attract to the marketplace millions of individuals who have no health insurance or could not previously afford such therapy.

According to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, the cost of such therapy on an OTC basis would cost at least half of what it currently costs in a prescription format ($1- 1.50/day vs. $3-4/day for other prescription therapies). Unfortunately, the FDA hasn't endorsed Merck's strategy and turned down Merck for the third time this past week by a 10-2 vote.

It will be very interesting to see Big Pharma scrambling during the next few years, on the one hand shedding assets and people, and on the other hand acquiring companies and products. It will be equally interesting to see how the U.S. car industry fares as well.

In the next decade or so, the U.S. workplace will be transformed with an explosion of flexible work schedules and a host of technologies that will make work tasks easier.

By 2020, there will be more 55-plus workers grinding away than at any other time in our history. As a result, labor experts foresee a rush by the nation’s businesses to accommodate the aging workforce.

Generational differences in the workplace are expected to rise, there will be unprecedented shortages in many industries as large proportions of the work force retires, and we may also see more workers getting sick on the job, with a possible rise in strokes and heart attacks as they age.

In 2005, about 24 million or 17 percent of all adult U.S. workers were over 55, compared with a projected 38 million or 24 percent by the year 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 65-plus work force will almost double to 10 million, or 6.4 percent of the total, in 10 years; and those toiling away at age 75 and over will make up about 1.2 percent of the workforce, or 2 million strong.

About 69 percent of baby boomers anticipate working past traditional retirement age, and money and health care are the top reasons.

Besides workplace flexibility, job-enhancing technologies of all types are expected to pop up in most industries, including:

Older workers may also be in a position to demand better salaries and benefits if their skills are in professions that are expected to have serious labor shortages. Some of those industries, include:

Laws regarding caps on how much you can earn a year if you are receiving Social Security may be changed.

Another possible change in legislation could include employers covering a portion of health insurance coverage even though an employee is already covered under Medicare.

Wellness and fitness programs targeted toward older workers will become a mainstay, and you can expect to see perks like onsite prescription drugs.

On the negative side is the impending labor shortage in all the industries mentioned above, but especially in healthcare. It is a double whammy for the nation because as the population ages, people will need more health care at a time when a huge number of older health care workers will be looking to retire.

And as American consumers only intensify their appetites for more electricity, few younger workers are looking to find jobs at utilities to replace the older work force.

Younger workers will be reaping the benefits of a more flexible workplace, but overall companies will be looking to groom them for leadership positions as baby boomers leave. But that will mean getting extra training and studying at night so they can do their jobs during the day but still prepare to take on more responsibilities.

Workers under 30 will be pressed into service they would have had to wait 10 years for. Whether that will cause problems in terms of quality and workplace safety.

There also could be growing tensions between young and old workers as we see a rise in the number of younger managers.. Adding to the tension will be a large group of mature workers who may resent the fact that they’re still toiling away because they can’t afford to stay home. Younger workers could begin to resent their older counterparts if corporations don’t treat the groups similarly.

Another concern is the diminishing health of workers as they age, even though Americans are living longer and healthier than ever before. No one knows how they will fare if they are forced to keep punching a clock into their late 60s and 70s.

“Certainly, in regard to sudden cardiac arrest and stroke, one risk factor is increasing age,” says Donald Wright, who oversees the office of occupational medicine for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. While he stresses that a worker at any age can experience such illnesses, he has encouraged companies across the country to adopt automated external defibrillator programs. He expects to see more of these devices that restore normal heart rhythms in cardiac arrest victims being used at companies in the next five years.

“We would hope proactive employers who really value the work and the talent senior workers bring to workplace would acknowledge some of potential limitations these individual have,” he adds.

Orlando once leaned heavily on Disney World and its service-sector spin-offs to prop up its economy, but today it is pulling in life sciences, digital media, and health-care companies with affordable (or subsidized) land and tax breaks. Electronic Arts; Hollywood animation firm House of Moves; and Burnham Institute, a top-rated cancer research center, are all expanding and adding jobs here. Despite the housing slump, such diversification will help Orlando crank out 72,600 new jobs this year and next.

Most of the hiring will still come from the region's tourism backbone. But Orlando will also post higher growth in professional-services jobs--everything from office managers to advertising account executives--than any other city on our list. The high-wage, white-collar category is projected to balloon by about 15 percent. The reason: Orlando's population is expected to expand by 150,000 by decade's end.

2-year job-growth forecast: 6.5%

Metropolitan-area population: 1.8 million

Analysts say Las Vegas could end up topping Orlando in job growth, because it is uniquely insulated from downturns in ways that most major cities would envy. True, the region took a hit when the housing boom went bust last year--a sixth of its workforce is involved in construction and real estate.

But almost at the same time, the value of the U.S. dollar fell last winter and foreign tourists surged in, sparking restaurant openings and hotel expansions. MGM Mirage alone plans to hire 28,000 new employees by the end of the decade. Milken Institute economist Ross DeVol notes that Vegas continues to attract back-office operations from California's high-tech regions. The cost of a knowledge worker, including salary, training, and benefits, is about 20 percent lower here than it is in Los Angeles or San Francisco.

2-year job-growth forecast: 5.8%

Metropolitan-area population: 1.5 million

Raleigh-Durham remains America's top region for tech workers--and is expected to keep expanding faster than other tech hubs like Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle. Last year the metro matched the job-creation record it set in 2000 by adding 38,000 new positions. "This year is going to come in almost as high," predicts Wachovia senior economist Mark Vitner. Like Washington, Raleigh-Durham has a large public-sector base that helps protect it from economic slumps. But its economy is more diverse than Washington's, with expansion in pharmaceutical manufacturing, biotech, and financial services. Raleigh's cost advantages keep drawing more top employers. This fall Fidelity Investments will open a $100 million tech center that will add 2,000 jobs, and Silicon Valley-based Network Appliance is expanding its operations division here. "Raleigh is cheaper," Vitner says, "and has one of the most highly educated workforces in the country."

2-year job-growth forecast: 5.7%

Metropolitan-area population: 1.6 million

Charlotte has surpassed Atlanta as the financial center of the South. The $2.1 trillion in assets that local financial services giants Bank of America and Wachovia pulled in last year made Charlotte a close second to New York City as America's financial capital. Thanks in part to its big banks, the region's total business investment--a powerful driver of jobs--nearly tripled in '06, hitting $4.1 billion and adding 12,000 jobs to Charlotte and 20,000 to the region overall.

Charlotte may soon become an important new biotechnology hub. David Murdock, a venture capitalist and the chairman of Dole Food, is building a $1.5 billion biotech complex in nearby Kannapolis that could generate more than 14,000 jobs. Scientists from the state's top universities are already trickling into the 350-acre North Carolina Research Campus, which is expected to be completed in 2011.

2-year job-growth forecast: 5.6%

Metropolitan-area population: 4.0 million

In each of the past three years, the Phoenix area has created about 95,000 new jobs, many of them fueled by an unprecedented construction boom. This year's number is pegged at about 60,000--a major drop-off, to be sure, but still enough in the context of the national slowdown to place Phoenix solidly in the top 10. Low income taxes and sunny weather are still attracting a steady s

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FORBES 2000 COMPANIES THAT ARE HIRING IN 2008

2007: THE BEST AND WORST OF TIMES FOR BIG PHARMA