The Most Satisfying Jobs In America: Economist Explains What Makes Workers Happy

Glassdoor is one of the leading job search engines and company reviews sites in the globe. Every year, the firm hands over its Employees' Choice Awards, also known as the 50 Best Places to Work Awards, and publishes several other reports based on its data, ranging from CEO approval rates to average salaries.

Quite recently, the firm issued its list of 50 Best Jobs in America for 2017. Employment options were ranked according to number of job openings, annual salaries, and overall job satisfaction ratings. This article will focus on this last aspect of the research note: how satisfying are the top jobs in America.

A Brief Look At The Report

As per Glassdoor’s research note, the top five jobs were:

1. Data Scientist
2. DevOps Engineer
3. Data Engineer
4. Tax Manager
5. Analytics Manager

“This report reinforces that the best jobs are highly-skilled and are staying ahead of the growing trend toward workplace automation. Nearly half the list is comprised of jobs within the fast growing technology, healthcare, and finance industries,” Glassdoor Chief Economist Dr. Andrew Chamberlain declared.

“The key skills that are helping workers stay ahead of automation are creativity, judgment, and flexibility. Those are aspects of work that are extremely difficult to automate, and having them allows workers to team up with technology to become more productive -- rather than simply being replaced by it,” he added.

The Most Satisfying Jobs

Benzinga was particularly intrigued by the Job Satisfaction rating in Glassdoor’s report. So, we reached out to Dr. Chamberlain and asked him to walk us through the methodology.

"In terms of measuring employee satisfaction, Glassdoor constantly gathers reviews from employees on how satisfied they are in their jobs,” he explicated. “Past research has shown that employee satisfaction can be directly impacted by a range of variables, including company culture, feeling tied to a company's mission, the quality of benefits packages, earning potential and so on. In fact, we have also found that difficult job interviews are statistically linked to higher employee satisfaction later on."

So, without further ado, here are the most satisfying jobs among the 50 best jobs in America for 2017.

1. Data Scientist

• Job Satisfaction: 4.4/5
• Median Base Salary: $110,000
• Job Openings: 4,184
• Overall Job Score: 4.8/5

2. Data Engineer

• Job Satisfaction: 4.3/5
• Median Base Salary: $106,000
• Job Openings: 2,599
• Overall Job Score: 4.7/5

3. Strategy Manager

• Job Satisfaction: 4.3/5
• Median Base Salary: $130,000
• Job Openings: 1,184
• Overall Job Score: 4.5/5

4. DevOps Engineer

• Job Satisfaction: 4.2/5
• Median Base Salary: $110,000
• Job Openings: 2,725
• Overall Job Score: 4.7/5

5. Corporate Recruiter

• Job Satisfaction: 4.2/5
• Median Base Salary: $60,000
• Job Openings: 2,858
• Overall Job Score: 4.8/5

6. Intelligence Analyst

• Job Satisfaction: 4.2/5
• Median Base Salary: $62,400
• Job Openings: 1,605
• Overall Job Score: 4.2/5

7. Analytics Manager

• Job Satisfaction: 4.1/5
• Median Base Salary: $112,000
• Job Openings: 1,958
• Overall Job Score: 4.6/5

Liked this article? Now check out Dr. Chamberlain’s explanation on why data is key to understanding the gender wage gap problem, and what companies like Apple Inc. AAPL, Facebook Inc FB, Dow Chemical Co DOW, Mastercard Inc MA and Visa Inc V are doing about it.