Recently, NPR published a story on the most common jobs in the US by state. They used the information gathered by the Census Bureau and tallied everything up by state. What is most interesting about this data isn’t necessarily what the number one job currently is, but the trend over the past 36 years.

Information and images courtesy of NPR

According to the NPR story, being a secretary was the most common type of job across the 50 states in 1978. If you think about what was going on that makes a lot of sense. In the 70’s, the US economy was fluctuating greatly. Thanks to the oil crises and other economic factors, unemployment just about doubled in 1975 going from 5.6 to 8.5 percent. Manufacturers were looking for a way to reduce the cost of making parts and they started outsourcing. Companies started to focus on office related work and less on shop work. This was really before the dawn of the computer age and having someone to take notes, schedule meetings and keeping things running smoothly was extremely important. As a result, the number one job in most business related states was being a secretary.

Then 18 years later, computer had arrived along with e-mail and even the internet was around in the mid 90’s. More people could handle many of the tasks that a secretary was doing and as a result, there was a great decrease in the number of secretary jobs around. Transportation jumped up to being the most common type of job. Whether that is a delivery, truck, or tractor driver, moving goods from one location to another was what most people did. The major change happened between 1988 and 1990.

Leap forward another 18 years and we see that truck the same jobs are still number one. Why wasn’t there a change? The US economy still focuses heavily on outsourcing manufacturing. If goods aren’t made next door, someone has to transport them from the manufacturer to the consumer.

If you are interested in making a job or career change, the trucking industry is a growing industry and there are estimates that the need will continue to outpace fulfillment, resulting in higher pay.

For more info on the NPR article, click here. They have a really cool interactive map and the article dives into the results more.