Americans have been quitting their jobs at a massive scale the last few months.
Recent data shows a record 4.5 million American workers quit their jobs in November. The Labor Department says U.S. employers posted 10.6 million job openings that month as well.
- Best jobs in America in 2022
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And with so many Americans updating their resumes and composing cover letters in the new year, U.S. News & World Report has released its latest rankings of Best Jobs for 2022.
Health care once again dominated the list this year, with roughly 40% of the top 100 jobs in either health care or health care support. Three such jobs — nurse practitioner (No. 2), physician assistant (No. 3) and speech language pathologist (No. 10) — made the top 10.
“It is no surprise that health care occupations continue to dominate the Best Jobs general rankings,” said U.S. News Consumer Advice Senior Editor Antonio Barbera.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly helped underscore the essential role they play in all of our lives,” he said. “The low unemployment rates and strong future prospects for many of these roles certainly reflect that.”
Information security analyst was the No. 1 overall best job.
“Information security analysts are increasingly critical as organizations work to protect against data breaches and cyberattacks,” Barbera said. “The 10-year outlook for the occupation is strong: It is predicted to be in high demand, with an expected expansion of the profession and an increase in its volume of jobs.”
A few other jobs in the technology category ranked high as well: software developer and data scientist (Nos. 5 and 6, respectively). The rest of the top 10 included financial manager (No. 7), statistician (No. 8), lawyer (No. 9) and a health care-oriented job in the business category, medical and health services manager (No. 4).
U.S. News broke down jobs into 12 categories, and based the rankings on a number of factors: median salary, unemployment rate, 10-year growth volume, 10-year growth percentage, future job prospects, stress level and work-life balance.
Best paying cities
U.S. News also ranked the nation’s best-paying cities, which “have the most occupations with annual mean salaries that are among the top five for that particular position.”
D.C. ranked 10th overall on that list, with 20 jobs. The highest paying of those included oral/maxillofacial surgeon (with an annual mean salary of $272,110), orthodontist ($255,620), lawyer ($186,070) and computer network architect ($136,390). These four positions, coincidentally, are also in U.S. News’ rankings of the 25 Best Jobs That Pay More Than $100,000.
Another city in the region that was ranked lower but whose salaries stood out was Baltimore. It had four that pay comparably well: computer systems administrator ($116,840), survey researcher ($95,010), geographer ($95,680) and political scientist ($156,110).
Of the best-paying cities that were ranked in the top 20, 12 are in California, including overall No. 1 San Francisco, with 91 jobs that paid comparably well.
Check out the full list of U.S. News’s rankings of the Best Jobs for 2022 on the U.S. News website.
