North Country careers on the bottom (and top)

A math professor friend who lives in Potsdam forwarded me this WSJ article about the best and worst occupations in the United States. She was feeling good – mathematicians are on top.

Check out what’s on the bottom: lumberjacks and dairy farmers. That’s a lot of North Country folks, or, at least, it used to be.

On the opposite end of the career spectrum are lumberjacks. The study shows these workers, also known as timber cutters and loggers, as having the worst occupation, because of the dangerous nature of their work, a poor employment outlook and low annual pay — just $32,124.

It seems like anyone who works with their hands ranks low on the list, compiled by CareerCast.com. Ask any dairy farmer and they’ll tell you how hard it is to get someone to work in the milkhouse or wrestling with the herd ankle deep in manure and mud. That’s why more and more dairy workers in the North Country are Mexicans and Guatemalans. Tough to compete with $10/hr. jobs in the sparkling, asceptic atmosphere of Walmart’s linens department.

What does this say about our society, that the people who work the hardest jobs get paid the least? That job in the biology lab wouldn’t be so good if there was nobody to pick up the trash.

As for me, could be better, could be worse. Newscaster’s at #75. Disc Jockey ranks at #108. Hey, I ain’t complaining.