WASHINGTON — Healthcare jobs, not information technology jobs, dominate U.S. News & World Report’s list of the best jobs for 2017 and dentistry sits at the very top of the heap.
The list is based on a broad range of considerations, including demand, growth, pay, future job prospects and stress.
“When we talk to dentists, they talk about the fact that they can make their own hours and they’re not dealing with life-threatening conditions typically, so they have a relatively low stress level for a medical profession,” U.S. News’ Susannah Snider told WTOP.
While dentists tend to graduate with higher-than-average student loan debt and buying into a practice is not cheap, the relative wages earned in the dentistry industry tend to compensate for those early costs, U.S. News said.
Four of the top five 100 Best Jobs are in the health care field.
“Healthcare is the big player in the room this year as far as jobs go. With aging baby boomers and increased demand for medical services, it is expected to continue to grow as a professional field,” Snider says.
“They are also those kinds of jobs where you need physical people in the room to do the work. It can’t be outsourced or replaced by robots,” she said.
The top five jobs on U.S. News’ 100 Best Jobs list:
- Dentist
- Nurse Practitioner
- Physician Assistant
- Statistician
- Orthodontist
And the Best Paying Jobs:
- Anesthesiologist
- Surgeon
- Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon
- Obstetrician and Gynecologist
- Orthodontist
You can see the full list of U.S. News & World Report’s best overall jobs and by category here.
