What jobs do people do?

All the recent talk on employment numbers got me curious as to what exactly people are employed in. A quick visit to the U.S. Census Bureau and some Excel magic reveals this graph:

So much for the myth of being a nation of lawyers, baristas and burger flippers!

If you add up the obvious service industries (excluding health), they add up to less than 14%.

If you add up all the professional and white-collar jobs to this, that comes to 45% of the work force. This includes core I.T. jobs, which is only around 2% of the work force! Legal occupations are only around 1%.

Construction and manufacturing workers make up 23%.

Health-related workers come to around 7%.

Education is 6%.

If you are curious as to what each occupation category means, check out The Standard Occupational Classification.

Here's a more interesting way of looking at it: If the U.S. were a deserted island with 10 people on it:

• Gilligan is a salesperson
• Russell is a doctor
• Mary Ann is a secretary, who teaches part time
• Sue is a call center representative
• Ed is an accountant, who dabbles in law and computer programming on weekends
• Marge is a cook
• Jonas is a carpenter
• His friend Al is a metal worker
• Harry is an aspiring actor, who "daylights" as a policeman,firefighter, farmer, and physical therapist.
• And Thurston is the manager of the other 9 :)