What is the most common job in america
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics BLS National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates survey , which is based on May salary and employment data from a million businesses, the most common job in America is retail salesperson. But considering the current landscape of the retail industry, that could soon change — with companies continuing to close more and more traditional brick-and-mortar stores as they face the growing threat of online shopping. Business Insider took a closer look at the BLS data to come up with a list of the most popular jobs in the U. Read more: Best jobs for entry level workers. Read more: The 1 thing employers look for on a resume.
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The Top 10 Most and Least Stressful Jobs
At first the work of Chicago was trade and—nearly equally important—speculation in real estate and in the city's future as the great metropolis of the frontier. Chicago's commercial and, eventually, industrial power depended on its linkages to the hinterland and other cities, first by lakes, rivers, and canals, then roads and railroads , which consolidated Chicago's central position until the ascendance of air power and interstate highways after World War II.
Although trade and transportation remained key, in the mid-nineteenth century small factories first began processing the products of the prairie—packing pork, sawing lumber , or milling flour—and then started making grain harvesters, furniture , and clothing for farmers and frontier towns. As the nation's transportation hub, Chicago also became the Midwest's primary labor market for rural and small-town job seekers and immigrant workers—at first from Germany, Ireland, and Scandinavia, then from Southern and Eastern Europe.
From its early days, Chicago was a place where everything happened fast. The town grew with amazing speed, generating jobs in construction and the manufacture of construction materials, but there was a high priority on doing things quickly and grandly in every other endeavor as well. This emphasis on speed and scale also encouraged businessmen to find faster, simpler ways to get things done, resulting in the standardization of products from grades of grain to sizes of lumber.
Chicago's success lay partly in the ability of its businesses to make nature abstract in ways that transformed products of farms and forest more readily into commodities for the market. Chicago's grain merchants turned discrete bags of grain from specific fields into a standard type passing through the city's new grain elevators, financed in part by contracts for future delivery that formed the basis for a new financial services business.
Chicago's competitive environment fostered a search for production methods that were faster and less expensive. Anxious to cut costs, businesses sought ways to trim the cost of labor. One important step was elaborating the division of labor.
Dividing a job, such as building a house or butchering a pig, that had previously been executed by a master craftsman, made it possible for employers to hire unskilled workers at lower wages. Equally important, it shifted control to the employer, who adopted a variety of strategies to respond to labor market supply, technological opportunities, and worker resistance. In Chicago, major industries such as construction, meatpacking , garment making, and machinery manufacture followed distinctive courses.
Although large contractors rather than master carpenters dominated Chicago building construction as early as the s, carpenters were still skilled tradesmen who supplied their own extensive tool chests.
In balloon frame construction opened up the potential for increased reliance on factory mass production of building parts like sashes and doors. Even at the work site, contractors turned to piecework, fragmenting the work into specialties that required little training and offering lower pay tied to output. The industry relied on the line to fragment labor-intensive production and to organize meatpacking on a much larger scale than had previously been possible. There could be up to separate operations divided among many workers in sewing a man's coat.
By the late nineteenth century, major men's clothing retailers consolidated many sweatshops into larger factories to gain more control over quality, although contractor sweatshops persisted. The machines turned out poor-quality castings, however, and nearly tripled labor costs in the short term. As the new factory system challenged the craftsman's control, the foreman—and, to a lesser extent, labor brokers and employment agents—assumed new importance. His power provoked worker rebellions small and large.
Before the new factory system, hours of work were usually long, but work was sporadic and often paced by workers themselves.
Until the s, it was not unusual for Chicago factory or other manual workers to put in 10 hours or more a day, 6 days a week, with hour days common in many industries, including steel. Yet the opposite condition was equally problematic: work continued to be irregular and unreliable.
Many industries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were seasonal, with meatpacking jobs more available in the winter and construction jobs in the spring through fall.
Even within the seasons, work was erratic. For example, a few packinghouse workers were given steady jobs and, in return, were expected to show fervent loyalty to management. Most workers, however, did not know how much work they would have.
They would show up outside the gates of the stockyards and wait to be called, then perhaps end up working very long hours early in the week but few or no hours at the end. Uncertain business cycles, panics, and depressions precipitated widespread cuts in wages for many and threw others out of work, forcing them to rely on limited private charity.
During boom periods, workers in factories experienced extremely high turnover, as many expressed their frustrations and hopes by quitting. Immigrant workers complained that work in Chicago was harder than back home, and historians debate how much better off financially, if at all, immigrants were here, especially with employers' persistent efforts to drive down wages.
Even when productivity soared, workers struggled to gain their share. At McCormick Reaper and its successor, International Harvester, for example, wages and benefits grew on average 0. Historians often describe the change in work in late-nineteenth-century Chicago as an homogenization of labor toward a low common denominator comparable to the homogenization of nature and standardization of products by Chicago's industries.
As mechanization increased in factories, semiskilled machine operator positions grew in numbers, threatening the skilled workers, sometimes providing better jobs for unskilled workers, and complicating relationships between workers. But the intensified commodification of labor did not eliminate all distinctions. Employers maintained elaborately differentiated wage scales and increasingly designated certain jobs or departments within a factory as primarily the province of particular ethnic groups or genders.
At a time when roughly two-thirds of Chicago factory workers were immigrants, employers pursued a variety of strategies to mix and separate different ethnic groups to the employers' advantage. While some divisions reflected skills and labor market supply and demand, they were primarily part of a management strategy to control workers, discourage their organization into unions, exploit entrenched social discrimination, and create individualistic motivations to work harder.
Just as Chicago gained fame as a center of unionism and worker radicalism in the middle and late nineteenth century, the city's business leaders were equally notorious for their adamant opposition to unionization or other worker organization.
Workers did not submit meekly to the changes imposed on their work. They protested wage cuts and demanded the eight-hour day; they also challenged, from different perspectives, the legitimacy of the new industrial capitalist order. They called for a cooperative commonwealth of producers that would include farmers and some small businessmen.
Immigrants, especially skilled German workers, brought with them socialist ideas about state ownership as a solution to the growing power of corporate industrialists. The influential Chicago anarchists , who supported insurrectionary action over politics , did not share the labor republican ideology but envisioned a future society that more resembled the cooperative commonwealth advocated by rural populists. They found allies among some upper-class reformers, such as members of the Chicago Civic Federation , who joined with unions in support of legislation to protect women workers and exclude children from industry.
As unions and reformers found common ground on regulation, employers enacted their own strategy to regulate markets by combining smaller firms into large corporations and oligopolies—from U. Steel and International Harvester to the group of dominant meatpackers.
This strategy protected business from ruthless competition, but it further reduced workers' power. Labor republicanism died out, but socialist ideas had wide appeal among workers, and into the s the leaders of the Chicago labor movement advocated a labor party and industrial democracy as a response to corporate power. During the s, Chicago workers finally succeeded in forming broad-based industrial unions in steel, meatpacking, farm implements, and other sectors. They also became linked to both the New Deal ideas of economic regulation and government provision of social welfare and the local Democratic machine, setting a pattern of reform and accommodation with a system their predecessors had reviled that persisted with modest changes throughout the century.
By , Chicago was, after New York, the second most important manufacturing center in America. Factories in Chicago were, on average, larger than elsewhere.
By , three of the nation's 14 giant factories employing over 6, workers were in Chicago. In most cases, the big factories also employed the most advanced mechanization of work. But Chicago was more than a center of manufacturing and trade in the natural products of the Midwest. From efforts to sell goods that both reflected and spread a new era of industrial capitalism into farms and small towns, Chicago became the center of new techniques in mass marketing, advertising , and consumer credit , epitomized by the giant catalog merchandisers, Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck.
Their mail-order catalogs, warehouses, and centralized sales staffs displaced not only many traveling salesmen but also small-town retail shops.
The scale of these industrial and commercial enterprises, along with the broad coordinated networks formed by the railroads, contributed to further changes in management and the growth of a white-collar bureaucracy to administer large, complex enterprises.
Initially, men dominated the office workforce, but after the s, the invention of the typewriter and the proliferation of business colleges opened certain jobs to women. At the same time, managerial strategies of dividing tasks and reducing required skills were extended from factories to offices.
In nearly every case, women were paid substantially less than men who had previously done the same work. Gradually, lower-level office work was redefined as women's work, while men continued to dominate the upper ranks. Office jobs greatly expanded women's place in the labor market, which had previously been limited to extensions of what were seen as women's natural domestic and maternal roles. In , two-thirds of female workers in Chicago were domestic servants.
Over the next 30 years the number of women working in clothing manufacture rose dramatically. The growth of Chicago women in clerical and sales work—especially in large department stores like Marshall Field's—was faster than in the nation as a whole.
Even as women entered factories, their work was distinct from and less well paid than that of male workers. In , domestic work was still the principal female occupation reported in the census, and many women still toiled at home tending to their families, taking in paid but unrecorded work, and managing the boarders common to working-class households.
Despite these conflicts—and many unions' prohibitions against African American members—blacks and whites sometimes did cooperate to improve working conditions. For example, black men made up roughly half of the restaurant and hotel waiters in late-nineteenth-century Chicago.
Like their white counterparts, black waiters were upset by job insecurity, pay inequities, and factory-like discipline. Excluded from white unions, however, blacks either identified with employers or formed their own unions. In , an interracial Culinary Alliance struck with some success, only to watch employers fan racial tensions and bring in women strikebreakers—although until then women were not common in the trade. During World War I, when European immigration declined precipitously and employers turned to the rural South for workers, African Americans made important breakthroughs into industry.
Between and , blacks tripled their ranks in Chicago factories, especially meatpacking, when factory work surpassed service as the primary employment of black men. The formation of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in was pivotal for the entire black community, but the organization of the multiracial industrial unions during the s had an even broader impact on black workers' lives.
Although many Chicagoans continued to work in small stores and workshops or in the informal economy, by more than 70 percent of manufacturing wage earners worked for corporations employing or more workers, a third for firms employing more than 1, The big corporations with their large factories, warehouses, and offices dominated the local economy and had the largest impact on changes in work.
Most big companies continued to control workers with proven tools: strikebreakers, private detectives and spies, divisive tactics, deskilling technology, and the legal apparatus of the state. Partly in hopes of reducing both worker turnover and discontent, during the early decades of the twentieth century employers also moved toward more bureaucratic administration, scientific management, and efforts to motivate workers with more than the threats of the old drive system.
George Pullman 's model town and factory south of Chicago in had been one of the most prominent early examples of paternalistic control in the guise of providing for workers' welfare, but modified versions of the strategy grew increasingly common as corporations consolidated economic power and sought new ways to fight unionization.
In , partly in reaction to a postwar strike wave, Harvester introduced its Works Council, a prominent example of the company-controlled unions that several major Chicago employers adopted in the s, when Harvester, U. Companies sought innovative ways to increase productivity, reduce turnover, and resist unions. Western Electric, one of many firms that made Chicago a national leader in electronics manufacturing in the decades after , initiated research on how adjustment of various physical factors, such as lighting, influenced work at its giant Hawthorne Works in Cicero.
Instead, researchers found that the social organization of the work group and the attention given workers by researchers were both more important than physical variables. This study laid the foundations for a new school of centralized personnel management that gradually supplanted the foreman in organizing and controlling work. Welfare capitalism and employee unions faltered in the Great Depression , but they provided additional legitimation for workers' belief that companies should treat them more fairly.
Although many believed that the Depression demonstrated the failure of capitalism, a larger number were interested simply in a fairer, more moral capitalism regulated by a federal government that provided more economic security and better working conditions. The new industrial unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations , as well as some American Federation of Labor craft unions, provided a voice for workers in the mass-production industries. They readily joined the labor movement during the Depression and World War II, despite continued resistance from employers that at times turned bloody, as in the Memorial Day police attack on Chicago's striking Republic steelworkers.
Demand for war material during World War II combined with labor shortages caused by troop mobilization opened industrial jobs for new workers, especially women, who were expected to return home after the war. Anxious to avoid strikes, the federal government pushed companies to recognize unions. In the postwar years, strong domestic demand kept unemployment low, and newly established unions raised wages and expanded benefits, including pensions and health insurance, which were tied to jobs rather than universally provided.
The Best Jobs In Italy
The twelve diverse countries that make up South America seem to have all perfected the art of balancing rich cultural heritage with the necessary growth and development required to remain relevant. Individuals interested in working abroad will be hard-pressed to find a region more personable, passionate, proud, and with more verve for life than the ethnic melting pot that makes up South America. Jobs in South America exclude no one, as professionals with all levels of experience and expertise can find work in this beautifully biodiverse region. Each boasting special strengths and its own unique flavor, the following five countries make up the most popular destinations for jobs in South America, and also where the majority of opportunities can be found.
Most Common Jobs, By State
The noun wright is defined as "a worker skilled in the manufacture especially of wooden objects. Among the many Wrights in history were brothers Orville and Wilbur, who were known for making a few things that got off the ground. As a word, wright is used chiefly in combination to form such compounds as shipwright and wheelwright. A playwright doesn't make things out of wood, but does produce plays for the stage. And words such as cartwright one who builds carts and wainwright one who makes wagons are themselves common last names, as the woman who voices Bart Simpson Nancy Cartwright or the familial singers Loudon, Martha, and Rufus Wainwright can tell you. A smith can be any maker but particularly refers to one who works in metals. A blacksmith is usually one who forges iron, while a whitesmith or tinsmith works with tin or other lighter materials. The word smith derives from Old English and is probably a cousin to the Greek word for a wood-carving knife. Smith is the most common surname in both the United States and the United Kingdom, with notable Smiths including economist Adam, singer Patti, and actress Maggie. A cooper is a person who makes or repairs wooden casks or tubs.
Map: The Most Common* Job In Every State
America is a popular expat destination but obtaining a visa to live and work in the country is hard. Don't let that put you off though; there are plenty of reasons why you should consider working in the USA. One of the main draws is being able to experience American culture first hand; another plus is not having to learn a new language. The majority of Americans speak English and in most cases this is the primary business language.
It's a Living: Last Names That Started as Jobs
According to the U. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for veterans fell to 3. Clearly, more companies are recognizing the unique traits that U. Employers are looking for the problem-solving ability, strong work ethic, leadership, and self-confidence that veterans bring to the workplace, says Casey Heaslet, a military admissions officer at Northeastern University. Furthermore, she says, veterans are highly adaptable. For servicemembers, their ability to adapt—to translate military prowess into a civilian career—means that their post-military career options are varied and plentiful.
[The evolution of employment in Mexico: 1895-1980]
Dec 14, Safety. Roofers are the 4th and maintenance workers are the 23rd most dangerous job according to a study based on USBLS data. It is in the best interest of everyone that we work together to ensure we work safe. AdvisorSmith studied the most dangerous jobs in the United States based on data from the U. They studied professions with minimum employment of 50, workers to find the 25 most dangerous jobs among total professions in the study.
25 Highest Paid Occupations in the U.S.
In the colonial era, the most prestigious jobs were reserved for well-off white men, who secured appointments as colonial governors and military leaders. Benjamin Banneker , a free Black man born in Maryland in , was a farmer and writer who, after the American Revolution , assisted in the land survey to establish the District of Columbia. Elizabeth Freeman , who successfully sued for her freedom in Massachusetts in becoming the first person to win her freedom this way , worked as a midwife and nurse.
A look at the most and least common jobs reflects the industries that are critical to the economy, as well as those that are gaining prominence, or becoming obsolete. According to Martin Kohli, chief regional economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics BLS , industry growth trends play a significant role in driving job totals. Food preparers, one of the most common jobs, are in food services, an expanding industry according to Kohli. Similarly, the number of registered nurses is keeping pace with the growing health care field.
There might be affiliate links on this page, which means we get a small commission of anything you buy. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Please do your own research before making any online purchase. If so, then you should consider one of the top 10 happiest jobs, as reported by CareerBliss. But how does someone become really happy with the job they choose? Well, experts say that there are a lot of factors to consider in order to be happy with your job. These include your work environment, salary, relationship with superiors and co-workers, growth opportunities, and a lot more.
More than million Americans are part of the U. The share of workers represented by unions is a bit higher, The actual number of union members was In , union membership hit its lowest point since the current data series began in the early s, falling below
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