Before you embark on a career that defines your life, you have to start with a job. But you must remember that not all jobs are equal. There are some jobs for which there is no future at all. To help you avoid the predicament of ending up in a job for which there will be no future, here's the job titles that are falling short of the average growth rate for US jobs projected over the next ten years by the US Department of Labor.

Information and office clerks work with pieces of paper. There's little demand for that skill in today's digital world. Information clerks and office workers collect, file and maintain paper records and perform routine office tasks. For efficiency and security, businesses have been and will continue to automate their office processes and digitize their office records, making most of the tasks done by an information or office clerk non-existent.

Desktop publishers create content layouts for printed materials such as magazines, newspapers and brochures. With the growth of the Internet and the move of publishers to online versions of their products, the responsibilities for layout of online content will fall to web designers and graphic designers instead of desktop publishers. There are also many software applications that lets business people design their own layouts for online materials.

Fashion designers are part of a shrinking industry in the US. Though there will always be celebrity designers, the workaday designer is on the way out. Fashion designers not only pick fabrics and draw designs, but also must work closely with the people who actually make the clothes. Work on new clothes is now being done more and more overseas to allow the designer to be near the point of manufacture.

There will be fewer tax collectors and tax examiners because of the growing popularity of small-government advocates. Taxpayers are willing to forgo public services if it means lower taxes. With budget cuts in local, state and federal government offices, fewer government workers will be hired in the near future.

In general, any job that ignores automation and the use of computers will be gone or shunted aside, as will jobs that buck popular trends. Economic changes that affect entire nations affect not only the number, but also the type of jobs that will be available for the average job-seeker.