12 Jobs That Make People Most Satisfied

Posted on September 26, 2017

Dr. Tom W. Smith published a large survey on job satisfaction in the US, which involved interviewing over 27,000 people across a wide variety of social classes and occupations. Out of all occupations, the clergy were found to be the happiest and most satisfied workers in America, with 87% of them reporting to be very satisfied with their work. Physical therapists turned out to be on second place, with 80% saying they were very satisfied, closely followed by firefighters, 78% of whom were very satisfied.

The full list of the top 12 most satisfying jobs includes:
1. Clergy
2. Physical Therapists
3. Firefighters
4. Education Administrators
5. Painter, Sculptors, Related
6. Teachers
7. Authors
8. Psychologists
9. Special Education Teachers
10. Operating Engineers
11. Office Supervisors
12. Security & Financial Services Salespersons

According to Smith, the common thread in these different jobs is them involving caring for, teaching, and protecting others, as well as creative pursuits. Cynthia Lindner, Director of Ministry Studies at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School explains this phenomena by saying that “This congruence of belief, values, and actions in one’s daily work can be immensely satisfying. Persons engaged in ministry have great opportunity to live and work out of their deepest convictions, oftentimes in the midst of communities of faith who share their concern for meaning, compassion and justice.”

On the flipside, the 12 least satisfying jobs were found to be:
1. Roofers
2. Waiters/Servers
3. Laborers, Except Construction
4. Bartenders
5. Hand Packers and Packagers
6. Freight, Stock, & Material Handlers
7. Apparel Clothing Salespersons
8. Cashiers
9. Food Preparers
10. Expediters
11. Butchers & Meat Cutters
12. Furniture/Home Furnishing Salespersons

In general, it was the low-paid and/or customer service and food/beverage preparation jobs, as well as occupations involving manual labour that were found to be the most unsatisfying, according to the survey.

Across all the occupations, 47% of people reported to be very satisfied with their jobs, and 33% said they were very happy with their lives in general. Job satisfaction was measured on a scale from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 4 (very satisfied), and resulted in mean scores ranging from 3.79 (clergy) to 2.84 (roofers). The study was published by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago (Smith, 2007).


Category(s):Happiness, Workplace Issues

Source material from PsyBlog