A story in the Wall Street Journal discusses a ’study’ that purports to rank jobs in terms of desirability.

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.

Mathematicians, with a median income of $94,160, allegedly have the most desirable jobs. Lumberjacks (who actually seem to call themselves ‘loggers’), at $32,124, have the ‘least desirable’ jobs.

Though note that you have to pay someone three times as much to be a mathematician as you do to be a lumberjack. There are a lot of crap jobs that don’t pay well, but it always strikes me that many of the jobs that pay particularly poorly relative to the skills required (mechanic, pilot, firefighter, etc.) are all things where the people doing the work tend — at least stereotypically — to love what they do. About a nanosecond of reflection would suggest that people wouldn’t do these things for lousy pay otherwise.

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.

[...] According to the study, mathematicians fared best in part because they typically work in favorable conditions — indoors and in places free of toxic fumes or noise — unlike those toward the bottom of the list like sewage-plant operator, painter and bricklayer. They also aren’t expected to do any heavy lifting, crawling or crouching — attributes associated with occupations such as firefighter, auto mechanic and plumber.

What if you like heavy lifting, crawling, and crouching? I don’t know about crawling, but a lot of mathematicians and other people with desirable jobs pay good money to gyms where they can, among other things, crouch and lift heavy weights.

The thing that strikes me about the lists are that the ‘worst’ jobs are all mostly such straightforward things that they’re the kinds of things that kids say they want to be when they grow up. The ‘worst’ 20 jobs are:

200. Lumberjack
199. Dairy Farmer
198. Taxi Driver
197. Seaman
196. EMT
195. Roofer
194. Garbage Collector
193. Welder
192. Roustabout
191. Ironworker
190. Construction Worker
189. Mail Carrier
188. Sheet Metal Worker
187. Auto Mechanic
186. Butcher
185. Nuclear Decontamination Tech
184. Nurse (LN)
183. Painter
182. Child Care Worker
181. Firefighter

A friend of mine is a sheet metal worker (#188), and he likes it very much. The list was put together by a bunch of statisticians, using the criteria that made sense — to them.

The ‘best’ 20 jobs are mostly quite vague things, or things that aren’t in all that much demand:

1. Mathematician
2. Actuary
3. Statistician

These are really the same job: the difference between the titles is mainly in the application. Note, however, that putting together lists like these really seems like a job for statisticians, who come out quite well in the rankings. Hmm.

4. Biologist

What the hell does ‘biologist’ mean? It’s an awfully general term. They might as well say ‘physicist’ or ‘philosopher’. Oh, wait: see below.

5. Software Engineer
6. Computer Systems Analyst

Both incredibly vague. I have no idea what the hell, precisely, ’systems analyst’ means, despite having held the title in more than one job.

7. Historian
8. Sociologist
9. Industrial Designer
10. Accountant

Professor, professor, cool-sounding job with slight demand, and another kind of mathematician.

11. Economist
12. Philosopher
13. Physicist

I think really all of these amount to ‘professor’. Banks and large companies employ people specifically as ‘economists’, but not many. There are lots of jobs out there — good ones — that require applied philosophy or physics, but very few companies keep either philosophers or physicists as such on hand.

And remember, when considering how desirable a job ‘philosopher’ is, that ‘employment outlook’ is one of their criteria. As it happens, people who study Philosophy as undergrads tend to have a higher income potential over the course of their careers than anyone else. But they’re not employed as ‘philosophers’; rather, they tend to go on to law school.

14. Parole Officer
15. Meteorologist
16. Medical Laboratory Technician
17. Paralegal Assistant

But not a paralegal, or a lawyer: lawyering is clearly an undesirable job, which is why so few people go to law school.

18. Computer Programmer

Note that this is not as desirable as job as software engineer, though, or systems analyst.

19. Motion Picture Editor
20. Astronomer

What the fuck. I mean, really. Astronomer.

Higher scores mean a ‘less desirable’ job. The criteria overall were:

Physical:
The necessary energy component 0-5
Physical demands (crawling, stooping bending, etc.) 0-12
Work conditions (toxic fumes, noise, etc.) 0-13
Physical environment extremes treated as negative scores 0-10
Stamina required 0-5
Degree of confinement 0-5

So if a job requires stamina, or ‘physical demands’ like ‘bending’, or too much ‘energy’, it scores lower.

Emotional:
Degree of competitiveness 0-15
Degree of hazards personally faced 0-10
Degree of peril faced by others 0-8
Degree of the public contact 0-8

If a job is ‘competitive’, that’s bad. If it involves contact with the public, that’s bad.

Jobs were also rated according to ’stress’:

Quotas 0-5
Deadlines   0-9
Advocacy 0-5
Win or lose situations 0-5
Working in the public eye 0-5
Competitiveness 0-15
Lifting required 0-5
Physical demands (stoop, climb, etc.) 0-14
Environmental conditions 0-13
Machines or tools used 0-5
Speed required 0-5
Hazards encountered 0-5
Own life at risk 0-8
Life of another at risk 0-10
Precision required 0-5
Initiative required 0-5
Stamina required 0-5
Outdoor work 0-5
Confinement 0-5
Detail 0-5
Meeting the public 0-8

Having to meet specific goals — quotas and deadlines — is bad. Being exposed to the public is bad. Having to lift anything causes stress, somehow, as does having to stoop or climb. If you use machines, that’s bad in and of itself. If you have any kind of contact with the public, or if you can even be seen by the public, that’s bad. Universally. Doesn’t matter if you like meeting people, or if you like working with machines, or if you have a lot of energy and so like stooping, climbing, and lifting: it’s still undesirable.

Let’s leave aside the fact that this whole thing is a load a B.S. — working as a ‘cosmetologist’, for instance, is more desirable than working as a ‘barber’, even though the jobs amount to pretty much the same thing. And ‘cashier’, which I imagine includes the people working the counter at McDonald’s, is better than ‘airplane pilot’, ‘photographer’, ‘veterinarian’, ‘teacher’, ‘recreation worker’, ‘actor’, etc.

The really pernicious thing here is that it casts jobs that involve actually doing something, as opposed to just thinking, as ‘undesirable’. According to their criteria, a job is most desirable if it has no measurable output or specific requirements, and if it can be done sitting at a desk. Lovely.