
The Most Common Job in Each State 1978-2014 - plurby
http://apps.npr.org/dailygraphics/graphics/hist-job-map-90/child.html?initialWidth=800
======
hellofunk
I'm rather surprised to see Software Developer as the most common job in any
state. I wonder what they consider to be software development. If you are a
not an actual programmer but you work at a company who's only product is
software, and you contribute to that product in ways other than writing code
-- perhaps as a copywriter for e-learning software, or a graphic designer for
a web app -- are they counting you as a software developer? Because while the
software development industry is certainly very large now, the number of
people actually writing code is not large enough in my experience to be the
most common job anywhere.

~~~
lordnacho
This is perplexing to me as well. I would have thought something that appears
across industries would be top. Something like accountant, secretary, sales
person. But then again Software Dev crosses a lot of industries. Also
professional jobs (desk jobs) have a lot of similar roles with different
sounding titles. Biz Dev, consultant, manager, and so on.

~~~
Retric
It's all in how you slice it. Teacher would be far more prevalent, as there
are 1.7 million post-secondary teachers in the US.

However, they separate Primary School teacher from just teacher and Primary
School teacher still shows up.

~~~
jrumbut
Whenever you aggregate data, particularly about human behaviors, the grouping
is always going to be somewhat arbitrary.

An underlying assumption, which we can make because the consequences of being
wrong are so low (god forbid we be entertained by an inaccurate infographic!),
is that all occupations will lose some people that should be counted with
them, and gained others they don't deserve, and that this will balance out.

It would be interesting to learn if there is some sort of systemic bias, say
jobs commonly held by women were more or less likely to be lumped together, or
jobs with more itinerant workforces weren't counted well.

~~~
Retric
IMO, there is a usage problem.

If you define an arbitrary worker type 1 as X, and then graph the % of the
workforce, average hours, or change in pay you can see meaningful trends.

However, if you create arbitrary category's and then just look for the largest
group or average salary etc. then how you define each group becomes extremely
important.

IE: Heart Surgeon with GP ends up an average that nobody really fits.

~~~
jrumbut
It does appear, if the citation of IPUMS at the bottom (a cool source of data,
for those who haven't seen it:
[https://usa.ipums.org/usa/](https://usa.ipums.org/usa/) ) means anything,
that they are at least using standard classifications.

That doesn't mean their distinctions make sense, but at least they're openly
available and documented.

------
pmjordan
As interesting and insightful as this is, I'm very curious about how much the
chosen level of categorisation affects the final result. For example, I notice
that "registered nurse" and "nursing aide" are considered separate
professions. That may well be valid (I assume it's to do with level of
training and responsibility? I just picked the example because the jobs sound
like they're similar, I'm not picking on nursing in particular.) but if you
were to combine them, would they suddenly become the most common job in
additional states? And presumably every job could be further subdivided (There
are few "secretaries" remaining in part because of technological advances but
also because that job has been somewhat rebranded into a bunch of more
specific titles.), so where you draw that line might have a big impact on the
ranking. Without visualising actual percentages (and/or maybe showing multiple
jobs that rank highly), they're really limiting how much this map is telling
us.

~~~
the8472
I would put it more strongly: The statistic is _arbitrary_ because there is no
method according to which the bins are chosen.

Sure we can still glean some information from it. But the "most common job" is
simply the largest bin for which nobody found it necessary to subdivide it
further.

What if we lumped "customer-facing jobs in brick and mortar stores" together.
Cashier, waiter, retail salesperson etc. etc. Suddenly that might be largest
bin.

What if we subdivided urban truck (small truck?), medium, long haul? And split
off agricultural use (tractor) too. Maybe it suddenly won't be largest bin
anymore. For the purpose of the automated driving discussion urban settings
are probably going to be automated much later due to the difficulty of
navigating pedestrian zones and things like that.

~~~
schiffern
Precisely.

>urban settings are probably going to be automated much later due to the
difficulty of navigating pedestrian zones and things like that.

For those who haven't seen a recent Mobileye presentation[1], they're already
well along on this problem with a BoM of only a couple grand in cameras and
microchips. At that cost point and safety gain it won't take long for the
regulators to just mandate it.

[1] e.g.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp3ik5f3-2c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp3ik5f3-2c),
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhpkvuPYfn8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhpkvuPYfn8)

~~~
the8472
I was trying to say that in the context of discussing job displacement by
automation long-haul truck driving might be arriving sooner because its
environment is simpler and there are fewer tangential requirements.

And thus there would be a valid reason to split the bin for the purpose of
that discussion. Which in turn would alter the results of those statistics.

------
csense
Two figures which stand out for me are:

(1) The disappearance of factory jobs (machine operator, assembler of
electrical equipment). The overseas flight of US manufacturing as a
consequence of free trade agreements is real; the causes, consequences, and
whether it's good or bad is a topic for another post.

(2) How common truck drivers are. I realized some years ago that it's one of
the few jobs left that lets people earn a decent income without much
education. Also, the job is a prime candidate to be replaced by automation
(self driving vehicles) and the economic displacement of all sorts of driving
jobs could possibly lead to social/political turmoil.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
1) The disappearance of factory jobs has less to do with "overseas flight" and
far more to do with automation. In years past, even a small manufacturer would
have one machine operator per machine. These days a single CNC machine can
outperform a roomful of manual machines and only require a single operator.

2) Living in MN, I was surprised by truck driver being on top since I only
know one actual OTR driver. However, this is a very agricultural state, and I
suspect that the majority those truck drivers are farmers who make most of
their money driving trucks commercially. A lot of farmers need a CDL by
necessity.

~~~
mtberatwork
> The disappearance of factory jobs has less to do with "overseas flight" and
> far more to do with automation.

Do you have any data on this? Personally I would lean more towards poor trade
policies and imbalances but would be curious to see some numbers on
automation.

~~~
mywittyname
Best to look up the GDP figures for the manufacturing sector. Essentially, the
US is #2 in manufacturing by a huge margin, while employing a fraction of the
workers of China, #1.

~~~
wnissen
Correct. China makes a lot of stuff, to be sure, but most of it's pretty low
value, like toys and raw materials. The iPhones are actually the exception,
statistically. The US still makes just as much stuff as it ever did, just with
far, far fewer people.

~~~
WildUtah
China makes the aluminium case for the iPhone and the glass. The key chips and
sensors come from Korea. The cameras, radios, and RAM from Japan. Some bits
from Taipei. The software is written in California.

------
nopinsight
The most common jobs in the Northeastern states seem to shift toward people
jobs: nurse, nursing aide, primary school teacher. These involves complex
tasks requiring tight coordination between motor, natural language, and
emotional skills. Thus they are unlikely to be replaceable by technologies in
the near future. (From my knowledge of AI, these sets of skills are probably
even harder to automate than those of software developers.)

Nursing and healthcare jobs in particular will clearly be in higher demand
with aging population in all developed countries (and several developing
ones).

Many of these jobs require moderate formal education and average cognitive
skills, but also a certain set of aptitude (e.g., empathy, communication,
cooperation) best inculcated at home and in one's culture. If more analysis
shows that they are indeed the most available jobs in the future, perhaps we
should start preparing the youths now (especially since these skills are
themselves valuable in life and in most other careers).

------
mojuba
1978: mostly secretaries, now largely replaced by computers.

2014: mostly truck drivers. To be replaced by computers by 2034?

~~~
bsilvereagle
I had a professor pull this visualization up on one half of the screen, and
then a news article about Mercede-Benz' self driving semi on the other half of
the screen.

He left them up for a about a minute, looked at all of us, said "All of your
actions have consequences, some of them unintended." and moved on with the
lecture for the day.

~~~
thisone
What point was he trying to make?

I would expect that anyone who's worked on enterprise software has been to
client meetings where ROI is expressed in terms of human resources.

It's part of advancement that certain jobs will no longer be viable for
people. People will train for other work instead.

It's not like suddenly, with no warning, 100s of thousands of drivers around
the world will need to find new jobs. But in the very long term, fewer drivers
will be needed. People who would have, at one time, become drivers, will do
other work.

~~~
marcosdumay
> It's not like suddenly, with no warning, 100s of thousands of drivers around
> the world will need to find new jobs.

Isn't that exactly the case? (Except that are tens of millions.)

Why not, are those people warned?

~~~
dragonwriter
Its not the case because its unlikely that the technology will be adopted
everywhere, simultaneously, overnight; it will be adopted gradually over time;
it'll probably first manifest in the job market as a decline in growth in
trucking jobs, then a decline in trucking jobs, rather than going from the
existing pattern one day to no humans working as truckers the next.

~~~
marcosdumay
Well, define "gradually".

I certainly won't be overnight. But you are assuming current truck drivers
will have time to migrate to new jobs as those appear - I really doubt two
decades is "gradual" by that measure. Yet, I can not see how it could take
that long.

~~~
dragonwriter
> But you are assuming current truck drivers will have time to migrate to new
> jobs as those appear

No, and I'm not even assuming that new jobs will appear.

That there will be warning and that there will be much that can be done _with_
the warning are very different ideas; OTOH...

> I really doubt two decades is "gradual" by that measure.

Two decades is enough time for people who are mid- (and often even early,
though not quite at the beginning) of a career to retire and not need to worry
about a new job, so its potentially gradual enough.

------
herge
This info graphic shows more the specialization of the workforce, or at least
of titles, between 1978 and 2014. I'm ready to bet there's almost the same
percentage of truck drivers in 1978 compared to today, it's just that people
who would have been 'just' secretaries have split into marketing assistants,
HR workers, accounts receivable, sales people, etc, and the total number of
white collar workers hasn't changed that much. However, a truck driver is a
truck driver is a truck driver, let it be a dump truck, a big rig, a van or
whatever.

Sucks for farmers, tho.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Farms have consolidated - 300 acres used to be a big farm. Now you have to
have 10,000 and a workforce of 100 people to farm profitably. So the numbers
have reduced.

The road I live on had 13 farms when I was a kid. My brother was the last. Now
he works in town and rents the land to a corporation.

~~~
escherplex
Sad point you bring up. Agriculture has morphed into agribusiness which
consists of large corporations with no personal connection to the land growing
Monsanto clones fertilized by ancient guano deposits and ammonium nitrate
synthesized from methane. Strange new world we now live in.

~~~
vlehto
The alternative is the Nordic model!

Subsidizing farmers so heavily that even our socialist welfare pales in
comparison. Here 50% of farms make 80% of produce. The rest just keep the land
from accommodating wildlife.

~~~
escherplex
Although idyllic farmland communities are a thing of the past (if they ever
were) the primary intended reference wasn't to sociology or even to business
model. A question arises as to what will be the long term impact on general
health of a lifelong consumption of cloned plant material raised on a steady
diet of junk food consisting of mined potash and reconfigured natural gas. Not
to mention the vulnerability of that homogeneous plant stock to a single new
pathogen.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Amusing way to put it. Not really the case, as plants are not 'made' of the
elements they consume biologically, and plant stocks are designed to be
resistant to pathogens _better_ than the 'wild' varieties.

~~~
escherplex
Really? But these plants are not being grown for aesthetics but as a food
source. Nutrition value (read vitamin, mineral content, et al) of contemporary
produce is considerably less than it was 50 years ago. If interested see a
sample low-tech Scientific American article on the subject.

URL: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-
and...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-
nutrition-loss/)

And for the sociology: what percentage of the population are responsible
enough to take the now necessary dietary supplements to maintain a healthy,
productive physiology?

------
breitling
Now I feel like I'm living in a bubble. I don't know a single truck driver,
yet it's apparently such a common job. Wow!

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
It's a very blue collar job concentrated in mid-low to low income areas. There
is a heavy separation here.I went to visit family of my girfriend's in El Paso
and was surprised to find out a good portion of her uncles and cousins were
all truck drivers. If you don't generally hang out with blue collar types, you
aren't likely to meet any truck drivers, but once you go into an area where
income is on the lower end of middle class you will likely find that they are
fairly ubiquitous.

------
Pxtl
Don't take away my pinch-zoom, and especially not when you've sized the page
so that I can't see the date and the mal at the same time.

Honestly, I wish there was a way to tell Android Chrome to ignore the html tag
that blocks zooming - using it is a moronic act of hubris and it frustrates me
every time.

~~~
delecti
Chrome->Context menu (3 dots)->Settings->Accessibility->Force enable zoom

------
FroshKiller
It'd be much more interesting and honest to link the original content that
provides context:
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-
the-most-common-job-in-every-state)

~~~
Tloewald
Thanks for pointing this out. It also covers all the objections discussed
elsewhere here (e.g. that some professions are fine-grained, others lumped
together, and that two categories were omitted for being too huge and vague).

------
kabouseng
What is by far the most interesting is that software developer is becomming
the most common job. So if in 30 years secretaries was replaced with smart
phones and word processing software, soon truck drivers will be replaced by
self driving cars, then in 30 years (probably less) what will software
developers (then maybe the most common job) be replaced with?

~~~
throwaway13337
Software developers are already marginalized by tech.

Across the board, we get better and better at developing software.

As a software developer, the job has changed from being good at writing
software to being good at putting lego pieces together.

It takes less people now to build: a simple video game, a SaaS web app, a
mobile app - the common things we get paid to do.

And because of SaaS proliferation, there need not be as much custom internal
software. This used to be a huge chuck of the work for devs.

Devops, too, removes need for as many 'it guys'.

The need for more software continues to outpace the trend of needing less
developers to create it. For how long will that be the case?

~~~
justinhj
I've been a software developer working on video games for 20 years and as
simple things become easy we find more difficult things to do.

When game machines solved the problem of moving lots of 2d sprites around we
wanted to make 3D games.

When flat shaded 3D moved to hardware we wanted texture mapping.

Now even a mobile phone game will have people writing pixel and vertex
shaders.

Then there's mmo technology where we have to build and run servers for
millions of players with no downtime.

In my industry at least team sizes have only ever gone up as has complexity.

~~~
throwaway13337
Right - I should have been clearer when I wrote 'more software' which, to me,
means more complex software.

So our needs change over time towards better and better software but there
might be a ceiling to software needs for the majority of applications.

------
kefka
So, my takeaway is that if the transportation is automated, our country will
have a "Few problems" with regards to unemployment, taxation, and human
welfare.

If? Make that when.

So, the next question, considering all the companies entering in this
landscape: How do we change our country to handle a mass forced exodus into
unemployment? What do we do with 5 million unemployed?

Worse yet, what do we do when we are looking at 50% unemployable? (Not
unemployed, unemployable. As in work done at free != absolute lowest cost of
food/shelter) And when that number climbs, where do we go? What do we do?

~~~
mywittyname
The change won't happen over night, it will be gradual. Fewer people will
pursue truck driving as demand dwindles, instead training for a more in-demand
field.

Software development is taught in elementary school now. So I suspect a lot of
the next generation will pursue that.

~~~
kefka
That's full well and true for "transportation".

The underlying issue is machine learning is making more and more jobs
unemployable. Those jobs would not be economical for humans to do at any price
(ie: $0).

And saying that software development is going to be it is simply fallacious.
It's obvious to me that most software development is also going to be eaten up
by lower levels of machine learning. And also, software dev is very easy to
export and 'grow' in the lowest wage countries you can find. And import is
easy, unlike any physical good.

And it still leaves the big question: What are we going to do with massive
unemployment?

------
ChuckMcM
So "computer analyst" replaces Truck Driver in 2002 in Colorado, and then goes
back to Truck Driver in 2004? Presumably this is census data, I see is the
[https://cps.ipums.org/cps/](https://cps.ipums.org/cps/) IPUMS data set.

I'd be interested in figuring out ways to cross check that set. On the surface
it looks like self driving trucks would throw most of the country out of work.

------
bespoke_engnr
Truck drivers, huh? Well, I'm sure there's a convenient free-market solution
for all of these people losing their jobs in the next 10 years to self-driving
vehicles. Maybe 'automated truck refueling technician'?

------
elcapitan
On a meta level, this is probably a good example to study for the impact of
grouping data into classes (most likely the truck driver is just a job that is
more easily groupable than the different types of office jobs etc).

~~~
DavidWoof
Also, secretary was a category that covered job descriptions ranging from
phone operator to business analyst. Factory worker probably covers as much
variation as office worker, if not more. And there's little inherent reason to
separate "primary school teacher" from teachers at other levels

I don't think some jobs are inherently more groupable, I think the choice of
grouping is purely arbitrary. We could just as easily have separated long-haul
truckers from local delivery people and these charts would completely change.

------
kdamken
I didn't realize that everyone in america was a truck driver.

~~~
imgabe
"most common" does not mean "everyone".

If there are 100 people and 2 are truck drivers, but the other 98 all have
different jobs, then truck driver is most common, but there's still not a lot
of truck drivers.

------
jccalhoun
This image is interesting but lacks any context (including what the asterisk
is for which is what initially bugged me) so I searched and found the actual
story which has the graphic and explains what it means including that the
asterisks indicates: "We used data from the Census Bureau, which has two
catch-all categories: "managers not elsewhere classified" and "salespersons
not elsewhere classified." Because those categories are broad and vague to the
point of meaninglessness, we excluded them from our map."
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-
the-most-common-job-in-every-state)

~~~
rficcaglia
here is a good analysis/counterpoint: [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-
truck-driver-isnt-the-mo...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-
isnt-the-most-common-job-in-your-state-2015-02-12)

------
tzs
The article that the submitted interactive map is part of [1] explains some of
the things that people are speculating about here.

An important note: they are using Census Bureau data and categories. The CB
has two broad categories, "managers not elsewhere classified" and
"salespersons not elsewhere classified". They map makers left those out
because they consider them broad and vague to the point of meaninglessness.

• There are so many truck drivers for a few reasons. One is that it is much
less affected by globalization and automation (so far) than most other jobs,
and another is that the "Truck Driver" is a very broad category in the CB
data. It includes delivery drivers, for instance. Some other large jobs are
split across more than one category. Teacher, for example, has separate CB
categories for primary school teacher and secondary school teacher.

• Secretary rose in the '80s as the economy shifted away from factory work and
toward office work. Then the personal computer took away more and more of the
work that secretaries did, so Secretary fell.

[1]
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-
the-most-common-job-in-every-state)

------
csl
This reminded me of the "Humans need not apply" video, which I strongly
recommend, if you haven't already seen it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU)

Discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8172461](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8172461)

~~~
vlehto
According to Marx, everything of value is produced by human. Some humans (like
engineers and programmers) can just produce more valuable stuff than others.

If we believe Marx and that jobs are going to disappear, that requires either
rich people not using money or money disappearing from the system. Currently
inflation encourages rich people to use money in some way or another. And we
have no reason to expect deflation.

Where is money going to disappear?

------
dredmorbius
Statistics based on classification systems are _entirely_ ontological
artefacts -- how many of X you have (or how many X you have) depends entirely
on how you subdivide space.

In an earlier look at this story, I went through a set of occupational
categorisation and census data dating back to the 19th century. As might be
expected, there's been a tendency for the total number of occupational
classifications to increase over time.

As might _not_ be expected, the high-water mark of classifications _isn 't_
the present, but the classification scheme used for 1910 - 1920 census data.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3832wx/occupat...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3832wx/occupation_classifications_growth_and_change_over/)

My favourite of all the occupations comes from the 1880 classification: #309,
"Gentleman".

------
GreaterFool
If truck driver is a most common job then the future looks pretty bleak. There
are billions of dollars behind making driving any and all vehicles obsolete.

I wonder if people know that Google, Amazon, Tesla and even Apple are hard at
work at killing their jobs!

Don't get me wrong, driver-less future is a nice future! But a lot of people
may get caught off guard.

------
yitchelle
Lawyers for District of Columbia in 2014 - Really?

~~~
acveilleux
Only they can afford to actually _live_ in the district? Everyone else lives
in VA, MD, etc.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Not really. It's much cheaper to live in Ward 7 or 8 or to a lesser extent 5
than it is to live in a lot of the suburbs.

------
parasubvert
These don't actually reflect the nation-wide distribution, which is heavy on
retail salespeople, cashiers, and cooks.

[http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ocwage.pdf](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ocwage.pdf)

------
grandalf
So of course the conclusion is that the people of Florida care deeply about
education because there are so many school teachers.

It's strange that data this useless is published/publicized, it's almost a
honey pot for idle, unscientific speculation.

------
jayvanguard
This is quite likely an example, from a data modelling point of view, of an
extremely slowly changing dimension driven by historical regulations, laws,
and taxonomies.

It may still be meaningful for a few industries, but not in general.

------
allcentury
Wow, TIL I was ignorant to the amount of software jobs in Utah.

~~~
nhumrich
I live in Utah. Its now coined "silicon slopes". There are a lot of tech
companies out here. Driving down the highway, most of the billboards are "I'm
an awesome tech company and we are hiring". Makes sense when you realize
Novell and word perfect were headquartered in Utah, and both are essentually
gone now leaving all their former employees scattered around the state
starting companies.

~~~
acchow
What companies have they started in Utah?

------
ck2
Unemployment is going to go through the roof once they get self-driving trucks
going next decade.

------
eggie5
Truck drivers... that's why the coming forth of automobile automation will be
so disruptive!

------
ThomPete
Most to be replaced by automated cars, digitalization and robotics the next 10
years. Then what?

------
borplk
Looks like software devs are on track to become the truck drivers of the
future?

------
dfar1
I believe only North and South Dakota remained the same over the years.

------
swehner
Self-driving cars, anyone? Trucks are coming first, I'd think

------
alphabetam
Everyone drives trucks?

------
Shivetya
so once trucks become automated that number should go down, similar how to
automation undid the need for multiple secretaries?

------
dfar1
A whole lot of truck drivers nowadays.

