Breaking: It’s better to be an academic than a lumberjack
Last week CareerCast.com, a new American job website, published the results of a massive study in which it evaluated 200 professions to determine the best and worst jobs out there. To come up with its ranking, the site evaluated each career on the basis of environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress. The resulting list is fascinating. It shows that the best jobs tend to be academic jobs, especially science related jobs, such as mathematician (which came out on top), biologist, software engineer, physicist and astronomer. The worst jobs, no surprise, tended to be dangerous low-skill physical labor type jobs, such as lumberjack (which came in last), roofer, construction worker and painter. There are some surprises though. ‘Parole officer’ was deemed to be a great job, rating at number 14, as was ‘paralegal assistant,’ which came in at number 17. Meanwhile, firefighter, which rates highly among the under-12 set, did terribly, coming in at number 181. And how did ‘publication editor’ rate? Quite well, at number 31, despite a relatively low average pay rate of only $50,000. The editors at Maclean’s feel better already.