Study: Just four jobs are worse than being a newspaper reporter

The Wall Street Journal

Those four jobs, according to CareerCast.com, are oil rig worker, enlisted military soldier, dairy farmer, and lumberjack. The criteria: physical demands, work environment, income, stress and hiring outlook.

Photojournalists do somewhat better than reporters: They rank at 166, just below dockworkers.

Most of the commenters on WSJ.com seem unhappy with the list. Karen Kelly concludes:

Every year this list amuses me since the top jobs sound like death to me. Actuary? It’s always at the top of the list. All the “best” jobs sound so dreadful to me. They have got to be kidding. Most creative jobs, which offer a lot of personal fulfillment, are at the bottom. I don’t think they take “happiness” or “level of personal satisfaction” into account in this survey. In fact my guess is that the survey was done by actuaries.

Jim Romenesko notes that newspaper reporting has been dropping on the list since 2010, when it ranked 184 out of 200.

Kudos to BBC for using a clip of Monty Python’s “lumberjack song” when reporting this story.