The information we used in creating this book comes from three major government sources:
- The U.S. Department of Labor: We used a variety of data sources to construct the information we used in this book. We started with the jobs included in the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET database. The O*NET includes information on more than 1,000 occupations and is now the primary source of detailed information on occupations. The Labor Department updates the O*NET on a regular basis, and we used the most recent version available, release 9.
- The U.S. Census Bureau: Because we wanted to include earnings, growth, number of openings, and other data not included in the O*NET, we used information on earnings from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Some of this data came from the Current Population Survey (CPS), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, and other data came from the BLS's own Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey. The information on earnings is the most reliable information we could obtain. The OES and CPS use a slightly different system of job titles than the O*NET does, but we were able to link most of the OES and CPS data to the O*NET job titles we used to develop this book. The CPS also provided information about the proportion of workers in each job who are self-employed, work part time, or are in various age brackets. The 2000 Census provided information about the relative earnings of men and women.
- The U.S. Department of Education: We used the Classification of Instructional Programs, a system developed by the U.S. Department of Education, to cross-reference the education or training programs related to each job.
Data Complexities
For those of you who like details, we present some of the complexities inherent in our sources of information and what we did to make sense of them here. You don't need to know this to use the book, so jump to the next section of the introduction if you are bored with details.
Earnings, Growth, and Number of Openings
We include information on earnings, projected growth, and number of job openings for each job throughout this book. We think this information is important to most people, but getting it for each job is not a simple task.
Earnings
Since so much of the emphasis of this book is on earnings, we want you to understand exactly what our earnings statements represent and where the information comes from. The employment security agency of each state gathers information on earnings for various jobs and forwards it to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This information is organized in standardized ways by a BLS program called the Occupational Employment Statistics, or OES. To keep the earnings for the various jobs and regions comparable, the OES screens out certain types of earnings and includes others, so the OES earnings we use in this book represent straight-time gross pay, exclusive of premium pay. More specifically, the OES earnings include the job's base rate; cost-of-living allowances; guaranteed pay; hazardous-duty pay; incentive pay, including commissions and production bonuses; on-call pay; and tips, but they do not include back pay, jury duty pay, overtime pay, severance pay, shift differentials, non-production bonuses, tuition reimbursements, or stock options. Also, self-employed workers are not included in the earnings estimates, and they can be a significant segment in certain occupations. The most recent earnings figures available apply to May 2005, so if the mild rate of inflation continues until you read this book, you can expect current earnings to have risen slightly above the figures reported here.
The OES earnings data is reported under a system of job titles called the Standard Occupational Classification system, or SOC. Most of these jobs can be cross-referenced to the O*NET job titles we use in this book, so we can attach earnings information to most job titles and descriptions. But a small number of the O*NET jobs simply do not have earnings data available for them from the sources we used and therefore were not included. In some other cases, an SOC title cross-references to more than one O*NET job title. For example, the O*NET has separate information for Accountants and for Auditors, but the OES reports earnings for a single SOC occupation called Accountants and Auditors. Therefore you may notice that the salary we report for Accountants ($52,210) is identical to the salary we report for Auditors. In reality there probably is a difference, but this is the best information that is available.
OES does not collect data on the comparative earnings of men and women, but we wanted to create a list of the best-paying jobs in which women's earnings are not greatly lower than men's. For this information we relied on the 2000 Census, which was the most recent source that reported statistics at the level of detail we needed for this book. Although the figures are a few years old and differ from the OES figures somewhat (they are based on the total weekly earnings), they are useful for computing the comparative earnings of the two sexes, a ratio that is likely to remain accurate for several years. Nevertheless, we decided it was advisable to report these percentage figures without any decimal places so the figures would not look more precise than they really are.
Projected Growth and Number of Job Openings
This information comes from the Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections, a program within the Bureau of Labor Statistics that develops information about projected trends in the nation's labor market for the next ten years. The most recent projections available cover the years from 2004 to 2014. The projections are based on information about people moving into and out of occupations. The BLS uses data from various sources in projecting the growth and number of openings for each job title-some data comes from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and some comes from an OES survey. The projections assume that there will be no major war, depression, or other economic upheaval.
Like the earnings figures, the figures on projected growth and job openings are reported according to the SOC classification, so again some of the SOC jobs crosswalk to more than one O*NET job. To continue the example we used earlier, SOC reports growth (19.5%) and openings (119,000) for one occupation called Accountants and Auditors, but in this book we report these figures separately for the occupation Accountants and for the occupation Auditors. When you see that Accountants has a 19.5 percent projected growth rate and 119,000 projected job openings and Auditors has the same two numbers, you should realize that the 19.5 percent rate of projected growth represents the average of these two occupations-one may actually experience higher growth than the other-and that these two occupations will share the 119,000 projected openings. It's especially important that you understand that (in this example) the figure of 119,000 job openings represents the total number of job openings for the two jobs. They share this figure-each job is projected to have some fraction of 119,000 job openings, but we don't know exactly how many. On the list of the "100 Best-Paying Jobs with the Most Openings" in Part I, jobs that share a figure for job openings are listed together because their position on this list depends on this shared figure. To remind you about how to read these figures, we print footnotes below lists in Part I to identify all the jobs that share data. In the job descriptions in Part II, we identify any occupations that share the job-openings figure listed for an occupation.
While salary figures are fairly straightforward, you may not know what to make of jobgrowth figures. For example, is projected growth of 15 percent good or bad? The average (mean) growth projected for all occupations by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is 14.8 percent. One-quarter of the occupations have a growth projection of 4.7 percent or lower. Growth of 12.4 percent is the median, meaning that half of the occupations have more, half less. Only one-quarter of the occupations have growth projected at more than 19.4 percent. Fortunately the 250 best-paying jobs are also comparatively fast-growing. The weighted average of their growth is a lofty 19.6 percent, meaning that they exceed 75 percent of occupations in projected growth just as they exceed 75 percent of wage-earners in pay. Among these 250 high-powered jobs, one-quarter have projected job growth of 7.7 percent or lower, the median is 14.2 percent, and three-quarters have projected job growth of 19.8 percent or better.
Perhaps you're wondering why we present figures on both job growth and number of openings. Aren't these two ways of saying the same thing? Actually, you need to know both. Consider the occupation Geographers, which is projected to grow at the impressive rate of 19.5 percent. There should be lots of opportunities in such a fast-growing job, right? Not exactly. This is a tiny occupation, with only about 1,000 people currently employed, so even though it is growing rapidly it will not create many new jobs (fewer than 500 per year, in fact). Now consider Postal Service Mail Carriers. This occupation is actually shrinking slightly rather than growing (its growth rate is -0.5 percent), partly because automation does much of the mail-sorting for these workers and allows them to spend more of their time actually delivering mail and thus covering longer routes. Nevertheless, this is a huge occupation, employing one-third of a million workers, so even as it shrinks it is expected to take on 20,000 new workers each year to replace those who are retiring or moving into other careers. That's why we report both of these economic indicators and why you should pay attention to both when you scan our lists of best jobs.
Finally, don't forget that the job market consists of both job openings and job-seekers. The figures on job growth and openings don't tell you how many people will be competing with you to be hired. The Department of Labor does not publish figures on the supply of job candidates, so we are unable to tell you about the level of competition you can expect. Competition is an important issue that you should research for any tentative career goal. In some cases the Occupational Outlook Handbook provides informative statements. You should speak to people who educate or train tomorrow's workers; they probably have a good idea of how many graduates find rewarding employment and how quickly. People in the workforce also can provide insights into this issue. Use your critical thinking skills to evaluate what people tell you. For example, educators or trainers may be trying to recruit you, whereas people in the workforce may be trying to discourage you from competing. Get a variety of opinions to balance out possible biases.
Information in the Job Descriptions
We used a variety of government and other sources to compile the job descriptions we provide in Part II. Details on these various sources are mentioned later in this introduction in the section "Part II: The Job Descriptions."