Saturday, January 10, 2009

CareerJournal: The Best and Worst Jobs

Here's a nice piece from Career Journal on a recent survey of "best and worst jobs".
The study, released Tuesday from CareerCast.com, a new job site, evaluates 200 professions to determine the best and worst according to five criteria inherent to every job: environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress. (CareerCast.com is published by Adicio Inc., in which Wall Street Journal owner News Corp. holds a minority stake.)

The findings were compiled by Les Krantz, author of "Jobs Rated Almanac," and are based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau, as well as studies from trade associations and Mr. Krantz's own expertise.

One theme that sticks out is that math skills are in style: six of the top ten jobs require some serious math chops. In fact, the top three spots are listed as "Mathematician", "Actuary", and "Statistician", and there a few more in the 11-20 range.

Of course, one man's meat is another man's mess, so a terrible job for someone else might be a great one for you, and vice-versa. In the end, you'll be happiest if you find a career that fits your passion. But until you figure that out, take more math classes.

Read the whole thing here.