Want a peek behind the current economic malaise? Believe it or not, some industries are actually growing — some by double digits — at a time when we're supposed to be thrilled over a 2 percent hitch in the GDP.

According to a recent study by Sageworks Inc., a group that tracks financial information for private companies, some industries have actually experienced significant growth over the last 12 months. They are:

1. Technical and trade schools — 10.80% growth
2. Home healthcare services — 10.14% growth
3. Activities related to credit intermediation — 9.06% growth
4. Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing — 8.95% growth
5. Educational support services — 7.80% growth
6. Outpatient care centers — 7.64% growth
7. Individual and family services — 6.88% growth
8. Data processing, hosting and related services — 6.84% growth
9. Software publishers — 5.91% growth
10. Community care facilities for the elderly — 5.79% growth

I recently attended the Target Markets Program Administrators Assn. (TMPAA) meeting, which is less a convention or meeting in the traditional sense and more of a networking opportunity for agents, carriers and program administrators. Within an intimate setting of 600 or so attendees, potential partners meet to discuss the nuts and bolts of current and future programs — which is pretty much the wave of the future, given the current state of the property-casualty insurance market. Specialization has proven to be not just smart business, but a way to simply survive in business today, for both agents/brokers and carriers. The agents I spoke with at the meeting testified to the fact that although their business growth was flat, things would have been even worse without their specialty niches.

So if your current specialties are in stuff like construction, housing or manufacturing, you might want to give a closer look to the 10 industries listed above. In today's economic climate, their growth can go nowhere but up.