When tealeaf readers gather around the virtual table, here’s the most positive spin they’re willing to put on the Internet job market: 2001 is a building year.

Looking beyond this rather gloomy consensus, the prognosis for Net employment depends somewhat on the flavor of your job. So we asked specialists in a sampling of Internet sectors -– wireless, brokerage, media and healthcare –- to tell us what they see when they look ahead to late 2001 and 2002.

Wireless: Bring on the Next Generation

“The outlook for wireless over the next 12 to 18 months may be a little shaky,” says Ben Macklin, a wireless analyst with New York City Internet research firm eMarketer.

Wireless technologies have been a victim of bad timing; just as wireless was ramping up, the NASDAQ came crashing down. Corporate buyers of wireless devices pulled back, forcing wireless companies to lay off employees -- witness the carnage at Nokia and Ericsson.

Still, planning a long-term career move into wireless may make sense. “Once the economy picks up and there are further rollouts of next-generation wireless services, there will be a great deal of demand for expertise,” Macklin says. “Rapid growth will occur between 2003 and 2005. If you’ve cut your teeth on the Web, then the next logical step is the wireless sector.”

Brokerage: Tied to the Market

The outlook for online brokerages is similar, though a turnaround may come sooner. But for now, “transaction volumes are down,” and that’s bad news for employment, according to Daniel Burke, a senior analyst with research firm Gomez of Waltham, Massachusetts.

“The hiring trend is wait and see,” says Burke. “If the market stays the way it is, brokerages will have to continue to cut. But if the market comes back, so will the jobs,” and in relatively short order.

Burke points out that online brokers connected to larger institutions -– for example, Wells Fargo and Bank of America –- are likely to do better against the dotcom maelstrom’s wrath.

Media: Business Model, Anyone?

Surely the Web’s publishers and entertainment moguls still need folks to create content, sell ads and keep the virtual presses cranking, right? That may be true, but times are tough for content types. A steep dive in advertising sales has forced new-media companies to cut back their staffs, including editorial workers.

“The next six months are really going to be dark,” predicts Jimmy Guterman, president of The Vineyard Group Inc., a new-media consultancy based in Massachusetts. With ad sales dwindling, online publishers have been forced to seek other revenue models that actually create revenue -- and those are in very short supply.

Still, Guterman has hopes for new media down the road. “We’re going to see a return to the growth levels of 1994 and 1995, when things were pretty good.”

Healthcare: Consolidation, Then Expansion

There’s going to be a lot of consolidation in employment in technology-driven healthcare delivery, “but this is a growth industry.” That’s the fearless forecast of Robert Cimasi, president of Health Capital Consultants in St. Louis.

“The Internet is going to continue to have a dramatic effect on integrated healthcare provider systems,” says Cimasi. When the Web is harnessed to enable doctors to share test results and to empower patients to manage their own chronic diseases, healthcare companies will enjoy big productivity gains. So competition will push the healthcare giants to invest heavily in information systems, especially the Internet, says Cimasi.

Notwithstanding the near-fatal collapse of consumer-oriented sites such as DrKoop.com, “I don’t see anything knocking the growth off track,” Cimasi says.

May the same hold true for your brilliant Internet career.