You know Labor Day is coming when the media publishes more careers stories than you can stuff into a Transformers lunch pail.

Earlier this week we spotlighted BusinessWeek‘s cover package on “The Future of Work“. Fast Company also weighs in with some cool thoughts about pursuing “Dream Jobs“.

The piece that I’m commending to you now is MSNBC.com’s “Where Will the Jobs Be in 2012?” a feature story by Jenny Lynn Zappala. We spoke a few times about the topic and I was eager to see how it would turn out.

In the future, I suggested, jobs opportunities will be a lot more compelling if governments address immigration, citizenship and tax issues so workers can travel and collaborate freely. I believe these changes would do wonders for the global economy if managed equitably.

Zappala did a nice job of compiling a list of 10 occupations that could be much in demand five years from now. Her list:

• Organic food producers, retailers
• Computational biologists
• Parallel programmers
• Data technologists
• Simulation engineers
• Boomer companions, caretakers
• Genetic counseling
• Brain analysts
• Space tour guide
• Robot builders, tenders

Here’s a job that I pitched to Zappala that I think will become part of corporate life by 2012:

Social Networking Officer. A Social Networking Officer is a matchmaker who profiles and inventories employee’s skills, personal interests and relationships – and connects the dots in meaningful ways. A Social Networking Officer helps to facilitate creative collaboration, improve teamwork, retention, and mentoring. The job is particularly important in distributed, global organizations where workers may otherwise feel disconnected and learning and collaboration are critical success skills.

Do you agree with me? Is this a job you would be good at? Would you suggest other ‘future’ jobs that didn’t make her list?