While much of the working world was nursing a morning cup of coffee yesterday, Jeff Taylor was cajoling a few hundred normally staid human resource executives to take off their shoes, wave them in the air and scream, "I believe."

It was a fun and engaging way for Taylor, the founder of the job search Web site Monster, to get the attention of the 55th annual conference of the Pittsburgh Human Resources Association and tell them his view of the future.

And his version of the future looks something like the now departed decade of the 1990s, when the dot-com boom fueled an unprecedented demand for technology workers, and skilled employees moved from one job to another, demanding better compensation and perks along the way.

As hard as it might be to imagine now in this period of a "jobless" economic recovery, Taylor is preaching that a labor shortage -- one that he describes as possibly the worst of our lives -- is right around the corner.

His reasoning has a lot to do with demographics. The economy and the markets are cyclical and will eventually recover, he figures, and in the not-too distant future a huge number of baby boomers will retire, leaving behind a massive number of empty jobs.

Even if domestic productivity continues to increase and employers export more manufacturing and skilled jobs to India, China and other overseas locations, the number of the job openings created by the soon-to-depart baby boomer generation is huge, Taylor contended.

"Ultimately, you're going to have to hire more people," Taylor told the human resource professionals, who were meeting at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center for a day of conferences and an exposition by industry vendors.

He also predicted a rebound for the technology industry.

"Technology is a little bit out of fashion; but the reality, I think, is that technology is going to come back as strong as it ever was," he said in a brief interview following his presentation.

Even though the days of a 20-something computer programmer holding out for more money and perks from an employer seem to be gone, Taylor urged the HR executives to "treat your employees like gold" so they will stay on and not defect when business improves.

"As the economy turns, you will not have enough recruits," he said. "Recruitment and retention will become issues."

He suggested that much of the job growth in the future would come from entrepreneurs who, with the backing of venture capitalists, will quickly grow a small company from a few people to dozens.

He contended that the large-scale movement of intellectual jobs to India, for example, would mostly come from more established larger firms and take some time to accomplish.

Taylor said he figured he had the right to prognosticate about the future since he built Monster into the nation's most successful online job board in the country by basically predicting the future of the Internet. Monster also operates in Canada and many European countries, as well as India and Singapore.

"And my business has done well; so I think it potentially gives me a platform for talking about what I think is going to happen as we move forward and try to prepare people ahead of the curve a little bit," he said.

Taylor is a showman for Monster and its parent company Monster Worldwide, formerly TMP Worldwide. He sold the company in 1995 and is now listed on its Web site as "chief monster."

A college dropout and former disc jockey, Taylor travels all over the world and delivers hundreds of presentations a year.

He prefers roaming the aisles while he speaks to engage the audience rather than relying on dull slide presentations.

When Taylor asked the crowd to take off a shoe and wave it high, he was making a point about how quickly people try something new.

There are the early adopters who quickly shed their shoes, the massive middle that followed the leaders and the laggards who kept their shoes on.

Monster itself is trying something new.

It recently failed to renew its contractual alliances with Internet giants America Online and Microsoft's MSN, both of which have signed up with a smaller competitor, CareerBuilder.com, owned by the newspaper companies Knight Ridder, Gannett and the Tribune Co.

Taylor said the dispute revolved around money and perceived value. The four-year AOL deal is reportedly worth up to $115 million, while the MSN partnership has been valued at $155 million over five years.

He said consumers would see more direct advertising for the Monster jobs board on both television and the Internet next year after the AOL and MSN arrangements expire.

"I've got a sense there is entrepreneurial risk and opportunity," Taylor said. "I'm bullish on the fact that the world has changed and it's important for us to change or else. It's a smaller experience unless you change with it."