The Most Common Job In MIchigan Is…

Using census data, NPR has drawn a map of the Unites States which lists the most common job in every state.

It's not surprising to find that the most common job in Michigan has shifted from machine operator in 1978 to electronic equipment assembly in 1996, to this job, which incidentally, is the most common job in the country.

Yes, it's truck driver. Our economy has shifted from building things to shipping things, and now truck driver is the most common job in the United States.

If you use the movable graphic on the map on the NPR page, you can see 'Secretaries' were in high demand for much of the 1980s in Michigan. The reason for that says NPR is...

Through much of the '80s, as the U.S. economy shifted away from factories that make goods and toward offices that provide services, secretary became the most common job in more and more states. But a second shift — the rise of the personal computer — reversed this trend, as machines did more and more secretarial work.

It's interesting to look at the table below the map to see the shift in each state over the past 38 years, particularly in DC where the most common job has shifted from Secretaries to Janitors to Lawyers. Although, when you think that most of those lawyers are pretty much cleaning up s***, maybe it hasn't changed all the much.

via BoingBoing