If you’re like most Americans, you probably spend more than 40 hours a week on the job.

For this reason, your career of choice plays a big role in determining your overall well-being. Not only does your profession have a massive influence on the potential money you make, but it also impacts your stress, work-life balance, happiness, and feeling of accomplishment.

However, it’s well-known that not all careers are created equally – and while some are stress-free with comfortable salaries, others can be high-stress without the compensation to make up for it.

Ranked: 100 Common Careers

Today’s chart uses data from the 2018 Jobs Rated Report by CareerCast.com, and we’ve used it to rank 100 of the most common careers based on median income, as well as three other categories: stress, growth outlook, and workplace environment.

The careers at the top of the list below have the best aggregate score, while the jobs towards the end of the list tend to be high-stress, low-income.

The 2018 Jobs Rated Report uses median income, as well as three other key categories to compile its rankings of common careers:

1. Workplace:
   A score based on the relative physical and mental demands for the job
2. Stress:
   A weighting of 11 different stress factors, which range from “deadlines” to “own life at risk”
3. Growth Outlook:
   Factors such as employment growth, income growth potential, and unemployment

See the full methodology here, for a more detailed explanation of the above categories.

Choosing the Optimal Career

If your goal is to maximize income, then traditional high-paying careers – like being a lawyer, doctor, investment banker, or senior corporate executive – are a good way to go.

For many people, however, a good career is defined as being more than just having high earning potential. Ideally, it’s also low-stress, while providing a healthy workplace that makes workers look forward to their jobs every day.

For people that think that way, it seems like being a pharmacist or a data scientist might present the best of both worlds:



At the same time, it may be safe to say that taxi drivers and reporters get the worst of both worlds: high stress and low pay.

Where does your occupation fall on the money/stress spectrum? Do you feel like the ranking above provides an accurate representation of your career?



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The Best and Worst Performing Wealth Markets

A lot can change in a decade.

Ten years ago, the collapse of Lehman Brothers sent the world’s financial markets into a tailspin, a catalyst for years of economic uncertainty.

At the same time, China’s robust GDP growth was reaching a fever pitch. The country was turning into a wealth creation machine, creating millions of newly-minted millionaires who would end up having a huge impact on wealth markets around the world.

The Ups and Downs of Wealth Markets (2008-2018)

Today’s graphic, using data from the Global Wealth Migration Review, looks at national wealth markets, and how they’ve changed since 2008.

Each wealth market is calculated from the sum of individual assets within the jurisdiction, accounting for the value of cash, property, equity, and business interests owned by people in the country. Just like other kinds of markets, wealth can grow or shrink over time.

Here are a few countries and regions that stand out in the report:

Developing Asian Economies
In terms of sheer wealth growth, nothing comes close to countries like China and India. The size of these markets, combined with rapid economic growth, have resulted in triple-digit gains over the last 10 years.

For the world’s two most populous countries, it’s a trend that is expected to continue into the next decade, despite the fact that many millionaire residents are migrating to different jurisdictions.

Mediterranean Malaise
European nations saw very little growth over the past decade, but the Mediterranean region was particularly hard-hit. In fact, eight of the 20 worst performing wealth markets over the last decade are located along the Mediterranean coast:

European Bright Spots
There were some bright spots in Europe during this same time period. Malta, Ireland, and Monaco all achieved positive wealth growth at rates higher than 30% over the last 10 years.

Australia
While it’s expected to see rapidly-growing economies as prolific producers of wealth, it is much more surprising when mature markets perform so strongly. Singapore and New Zealand fall under that category, as does Australia, which was already a large, mature wealth market.

Australia recently surpassed both Canada and France to become the seventh largest wealth market in the world, and last year alone, over 12,000 millionaires migrated there.

Venezuela
The long-term economic slide of Venezuela has been well documented, and it comes as no surprise that the country saw extreme contraction of wealth over the last decade. Since war-torn countries are not included in the report, Venezuela ranked 90th, which is dead-last on a global basis.

Short Term, Long Term

In 2018, global wealth actually slumped by 5%, dropping from $215 trillion to $204 trillion.

All 90 countries tracked by the report experienced negative growth in wealth, as global stock and property markets dipped. Here’s a look at the wealth markets that were the hardest hit over the past year:

The future outlook is rosier. Global wealth is expected to rise by 43% over the next decade, reaching $291 trillion by 2028. If current trends play out as expected, Vietnam could likely top this list a decade from now with a staggering 200% growth rate.