College and University Blog
Top 10 Unhappiest Jobs in America: Careers to Avoid
“Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,” were pearls of wisdom from Chinese philosopher Confucius, who lived from 551—479 BC. Despite the “generation gap,” his advice stands true today.
Unfortunately, we aren’t all lucky enough to be blessed with our dream jobs. High unemployment rates have many people scrambling to find any type of work but some positions are worse than others. Read on to find out the 10 unhappiest jobs in America.
Worst Jobs in America?
Website CareerBliss just released its new Unhappiest Jobs in America list, based on analysis of the results of over 100,000 employee-generated reviews between February 2011 and January 2012. Employees were asked to rate 10 work-related factors on a five-point scale, indicating how important each factor was to their overall work happiness:
- Work-life balance
- Their relationships with their boss and co-workers
- Work environment
- Job resources
- Compensation
- Growth opportunities
- Company culture
- Company reputation
- Daily tasks
- Job control over the work that they do on a daily basis
Forbes explained that these numbers were combined to find an average “happiness rating” for each employee who submitted a review and then sorted by job title, calculating which occupations had the least happy employees.
Once CareerBliss did the math and worked their magic, they came up with the top 10 jobs in America that make employees’ lives miserable:
1. Security Officer
Average salary: $29,641
Bliss Score: 3.510/5
2. Registered Nurse
Average salary: $60,857
Bliss Score: 3.549/5
3. Teacher
Average salary: $43,663
Bliss Score: 3.595/5
4. Sales Engineer
Average salary: $71,283
Bliss Score: 3.636/5
5. Product Manager
Average salary: $81,865
Bliss Score: 3.648/5
6. Program Manager
Average salary: $94,371
Bliss Score: 3.655/5
7. Marketing Manager
Average salary: $64,437
Bliss Score: 3.677/5
8. Director of Sales
Average salary: $91,821
Bliss Score: 3.677/5
9. Marketing Director
Average salary: $68,873
Bliss Score: 3.688/5
10. Maintenance Supervisor
Average salary: $52,799
Bliss Score: 3.691/5
Are you in one of these unhappy professions and ready for a new career? Head over to Careers for detailed career profiles featuring salary and job outlook information and education/training requirements. Then drop by the Job Board, where you can post your resume for potential employers and search open positions by title, type and location.
Related Posts:
Least Satisfying College Majors
Top 10 Worst Job Interview Mistakes
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Melissa Rhone+
Melissa Rhone earned her Bachelor of Music in Education from the University of Tampa. She resides in the Tampa Bay area and enjoys writing about college, pop culture, and epilepsy awareness.