Journalism, which was ranked as the worst job in America last year, inched up a notch to finish at number 199, just ahead of lumberjack on CareerCast’s latest list of the top 200 best and worst jobs in the U.S. for 2014. By “worst jobs,” they are referring to employment opportunities.
This is a reversal of last year when lumberjack came in at 199, after finishing at number 200 in 2012.
Neither job has a very bright future, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimating that logging positions will drop by 9% by 2022, and reporters by 13%.
Logging has been hit by flagging demand for products, along with the switch to mechanization for many tasks that lumberjacks used to do, while the newspaper industry has been suffering from declining employment since the 2008 recession, as advertising revenue plunged and consumers dropped newspapers in favor of digital news reporting.
Photojournalists (186) and broadcasters (196) fared marginally better, but they all fell below such luxurious jobs as dishwasher (124), sewage plant operator (141) and meter reader (183).
The top job in the U.S. was mathematician, with tenured professors—who collect good salaries and are almost impossible to fire—finishing second.
