As 2014 draws to a close, we look back as some of the career paths we said goodbye to in the past twelve months. We’ve actually been saying goodbye to these once viable career options since 2012, when the BLS released a report naming them as the occupations with the largest projected declines through 2022. And each year, they die just a little bit more.

Looking to the year ahead – fresh starts and all that – maybe you should think twice before considering any of these fields.

If you take one thing away from this article, it should be this: Don’t join the postal service.

Postal service mail carriers, are predicted to see a 26.8% decline; and mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators, a 29.8% decline; and postal service clerks a 31.8% drop.

The BLS is American, but as we know Canada Post will be stopping all urban door-to-door mail service to five million Canadians in five years, making the projection here equally grim. Even if some delivery does continue, eventually that will all probably be taken over by drones, like the ones that are already delivering for Amazon.

The reality might be that no job is safe. Mine isn’t. I wouldn’t have thought journalism
could be taken over by robots. But then it was. Is yours next? Probably.

On that note, here are the 20 occupations with the largest percent of job declines projected through 2022:

Fallers: -43.3

Locomotive firers: -42.0

Shoe machine operators and tenders: -35.3

Postal service clerks: -31.8

Log graders and scalers: -31.6

Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators: -29.8

Semiconductor processors: -27.1

Textile cutting machine setters, operators, and tenders: -27.1

Postal service mail carriers: -26.8

Motion picture projectionists: -26.5

Sewing machine operators: -25.8

Word processors and typists: -25.1

Fabric and apparel patternmakers: -25.0

Data entry keyers: -24.6

Textile knitting and weaving machine setters, operators, and tenders: -24.5

Postmasters and mail superintendents: -24.2

Textile bleaching and dyeing machine operators and tenders: -24.0

Animal breeders: -23.4

Drilling and boring machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic: -22.5

Textile winding, twisting, and drawing out machine setters, operators, and tenders: -20.5

Source: Employment Projections program, U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

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Disappearing devices: Ten everyday communications tools that will soon be extinct