Being a print journalist isn’t the worst job in the world anymore. Due to the high stress, low pay and dwindling opportunities, this was rated as the least favourable occupation to have last year. Of the 200 jobs ranked in the annual CareerCast report, print journalists come in at #199 this year.

Which means there is a new job claiming the dubious distinction of being rated as the worst in the world. This year it’s lumberjack. There is actually a connection between the diminished prospects for these two occupations. As fewer and fewer people read daily print publications, that reduces the need for journalists to produce them as well as for the paper they’re printed on.

In addition, being a lumberjack is also physically dangerous work carried out with heavy equipment in remote locations often for relatively low pay. The median salary for a lumberjack in Canada is just over $40,000 a year. View forestry jobs on Workopolis.

Journalists fare slightly better, earning a median wage of $52,000 a year in Canada. Given the state of the industry, there are very few job postings for a journalist on Workopolis right now. Here’s a look at all the available arts and media jobs instead.

CareerCast creates its best and worst jobs of the year ranking based on four criteria: the working environment, income level, employment outlook and stress. Based on negative scores on those factors, here’s where you don’t want to be working right now.

The 10 worst jobs of 2014:

    1. Lumberjack
    2. Newspaper Reporter
    3. Military Personnel
    4. Taxi Driver
    5. Broadcaster
    6. Head Cook
    7. Flight Attendant
    8. Garbage Collector
    9. Firefighter
    10. Corrections Officer

But that’s the glass half empty. Based on that same criteria, CareerCast has also identified the best jobs to have in 2014. So if you’re looking for a career with a safe working environment, ample prospects, good pay and low stress, here are some jobs to consider. For quite a few of them this year, it looks like you will need math skills.

The ten best jobs of 2014

Source: CareerCast.com – Click on the image to visit their site for the full list of 200 jobs ranked.


_______

Peter Harris
– Peter Harris on Twitter

_______