If you’ve been dreaming or praying for a second career that will help others, consider becoming a teacher or a religious leader.

Educators and medical personnel are among the sectors that will offer the most new encore career opportunities this decade, according to a new report from Northeastern University and Boston Redevelopment Authority. Ministers and clergy also will be in demand. The report, called “After the Recovery: Help Needed,” predicts labor shortages by 2018 when an estimated 5 to 6 million jobs will be created but unfilled.

“When the nation comes out of the current jobs recession – and this may take two to three years – we will begin to see spot shortages in labor markets,” writes co-author Barry Bluestone, dean of Northeastern’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. “By 2018, with no change in current labor force participation rates and immigration rates and an expected return to healthy economic growth, we will have more jobs than people to fill them. That’s true within the entire economy and particularly true of the fast-growing social sector.”

The social sector consists of health care, education, social assistance, nonprofits, the arts and government. Though it accounts for one-third of all current U.S. jobs, it will represent 47 percent of the jobs growth through 2018, Bluestone’s report predicts.

Social sector jobs also will represent about half of the 5.0 to 5.7 million new jobs that will go begging in 2018.

To be practical, here’s the 15  job titles offering the most encore career opportunities, and the projected increases through 2018:

1. Teachers, primary, secondary, special ed          647,300

2. Registered nurses 581,500

3. Home health care aides 460,900

4. Personal and home care aides 375,800

5. Nursing aides, orderlies, attendants 276,000

6. Medical assistants 163,900

7. Practical and vocational nurses, licensed          155,600

8. Business operations specialists 143,200

9. Managers, general and operations 143,200

10. Child care workers                   142,100

11. Teacher assistants 134,900

12. Receptionists and information clerks   132,700

13.  Managers, medical and health services   100,800

14.  Clergy       85,100

15.  Social and human service assistants       79,400

If you want to know more about any of these jobs – including pay, educational requirements and what the work entails – check out the government’s incredible resource called the Occupational Outlook Handbook.

The full report lists another 15 encore careers from the social and government sector that won’t have as many openings (Table 9)

To be sure, about half of these jobs are low-paying — anything with an assistant in it will earn a smaller wage. Some may not appeal to a 60-year-old who does not have the strength to lift patients into wheelchairs or push five or seven babies in strollers.  They may not find the exact job that uses their passions and talents. Instead, trends outlined in this report are valuable as they consider the right path and the better sectors to target. (Near the end are four pages of industry sectors, including some obscure ones that you may otherwise never even consider.)

Plus, MetLife Foundation and Civic Ventures have packaged this report with others that focus on green jobs, education jobs and health jobs. In those separate reports, some emerging jobs are identified, including teacher coach, chronic illness coach, energy auditor, patient navigator, sustainability consultant and home modification specialist.

If teaching sounds like a career track for you, you may want to check out the real case studies of people who moved into teaching and tutoring jobs, as well as some resources and how-tos for getting started down the education path. The organizations offer similar resources on health care and green jobs.

If you’re still unsure what your second career will be, join the club. Reading these reports may open up some new ideas, and so will some informational interviews and conversations with friends already in jobs you are considering.  The key is: Start your journey now and be sure to pack your curiosity and experience.

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The Northeastern – Boston Redevelopment report is based on data from the Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Boston Redevelopment Authority and Northeastern University’s specific occupational forecasts. You can read it online at encore.org .

If you want to learn more about education, green or health care jobs, three shorter reports are also available online. They each contain a lot of other resources, so it may be easier to read one a day and consider it.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook has a wealth of information on hundreds of careers. To learn more about it and how it forecasts job changes, read this article in its quarterly publication. Or check out the BLS list of high-employment, high-wage jobs - including several found on the Northeastern list.

If you want to read about a wide array of jobs – from game developer to pharmacy technicial to sand sculptor – the BLS has published an array of articles over the last decade. (Scroll down a ways to the section titled Occupations and Industries.)

The New York Times published an article on encore careers that looks at patient advocates, health care mediator and green entrepreneurs.