Top Jobs

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 31, 1999 | by Stephen Goode

The just-published Jobs Rated Almanac rates Website manager as the best job someone can get these days. The jobs taking second and third place are computer-systems analyst and software manager. Not until Job No. 4 do we get to a career that's been around for a long time: mathematician.

The editors of the almanac rank 250 jobs on the basis of the income they provide, job security, environment, outlook, physical demands and the stress they create, which is a big factor and significantly can lower a job's position on the list. Professional ballplayers, for example, can get big bucks, but lack of job security and stress bring a major-league shortstop down to 202, a National Basketball Association player to 205 and a player for the National Football League to 211.

The five worst jobs? Cowboy, construction worker, fisherman, lumberjack and, worst of all, roustabout, which Webster's defines as a variety of undertakings: deckhand, a longshoreman, an unskilled laborer in an oil field or a circus worker who puts up and takes down tents.