Business Insider: “The 10 Most Common Jobs in America”
By Kurt Schmidt In Blog, News On April 2, 2014
Not really a pretty picture. The link I originally followed to get to Business Insider’s post was from Slate and had the tab headline: “The 10 Most Popular Jobs in America.” The Business Insider post also uses the word “popular” in the address bar. At least both changed it to “common” for the headline. I’m guessing that was done as an edit after the fact because the truth is, looking at their list, it’s hard to see how “Retail Salesperson” could be the most “popular” job in America. The most “common” yes, sure, but “popular,” no. I doubt that most Americans are aspiring to be “Retail Salespeople” – not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Why do I feel that way? Take a look at the second chart on Business Insider’s post. The only job propping up the “annual mean wage” is “Registered Nurse.”
What’s not included but would be interesting would be numbers that show some demographic information about the people who hold these jobs. Are they careers? Are they stepping-stones? Are most of the people working in any of the top three under 30 years old? Where do they go from these jobs? In today’s economy, do they go anywhere?
No matter how you look at it, it seems that there’s something that’s not right about the fact that all ten jobs are in “services” as opposed to more constructive or creative industries. It’s pretty well known that our economy runs on services industries. My question is, how long can we survive by selling each other stuff that we don’t make and taking a little cut off the top for ourselves? Seems like a future of diminishing returns – and I think both of the chart’s in Business Insider’s post prove my point.
