Analysis | A huge federal project identified the most physically demanding jobs in America (2024)

Now — and we’re showing a shameless pro-data bias here — there’s a new data set that could solve everything. Funded in part by the SSA, the data set in question — the Occupational Requirements Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or ORS — marks the culmination of a mammoth five-year effort to collect 148,600 observations of the physical requirements of about 480 jobs at 56,300 U.S. workplaces.

To collect this data, scores of BLS economists fanned out across the country to ask about two hours of questions on the precise requirements of the selected occupations at each business. They asked about the need for foot or leg control (required by about 30 percent of jobs). They asked about the need to interact with the general public (required by about 80 percent of jobs). They asked about everything.

(Alas, the Dictionary of Occupational Titles is still in use. But when we asked about the Nut Sorter Issue, SSA spokesman Darren Lutz told us that the agency has “provided guidance to vocational specialists and vocational experts that it is a best practice to cite occupations that are more common.” In a statement, commissioner Martin O’Malley added that the agency is “working on identifying options to ensure that our adjudications rely only on occupations that exist more commonly in the national economy.” O’Malley, a former Baltimore mayor and two-term Maryland governor, officially took the SSA’s top spot in December.)

While we here at the Department of Data are not in the business of approving or denying disability claims, we have authorized ourselves to use this mammoth data set to pinpoint the most physically demanding jobs in America. And almost anywhere you look in ORS, a firefighter sits staring back at you.

Well, the firefighter sits 44 percent of the time. The other 56 percent of the time, they’re standing, per this data set. (Butchers stand the most, in case you’re wondering. Cooks, restaurant hosts and food processors, among a slew of other jobs, also rank quite high.)

Which job is most likely to require you to be able to hear speech from a distance? Firefighters! Which is most likely to expose you to humidity? Firefighters! Who is least able to control their workload? Firefighters! Who needs to be ready to lift the heaviest weight, on average? Bill collectors!

Just kidding. It’s firefighters.

On average, a firefighter is required to heft a max weight of 126 pounds, well above the 1.8 pounds hoisted by those bottom-ranked bill jockeys.

It’s not always easy to define what constitutes a physically demanding job. We know it involves crawling and crouching (you can guess what occupation tops these categories). But should we include exposure to extreme heat or hazardous materials? For the record, firefighters top those, too.

“In this day and age, every material is made of … plastics and carcinogens that we inevitably inhale and just absorb into our skin,” Boston firefighter Edward Kelly told us. “It shortens our life expectancy. … The number one killer of firefighters is actually cancer.”

If we include a dozen components — heck, no matter what we include — firefighters take the top spot. Other top rankers include RV and bus-and-truck mechanics, roofers, paramedics and police officers.

To be sure, we’re only measuring whether you’ll have to do each task on the job. We’re not measuring how frequently you’ll have to do it. So we’re really saying fighting fires demands the widest range of physical ability, not that it’s the most physically exhausting. With this dataset, we can’t really measure the intensity of any job, at least not in any comprehensive fashion.

Kelly has spent his entire 27-year career with the same South End ladder truck. We asked him if our ranking rings true.

“It doesn’t surprise me in the least,” he told us. The job “kicks the absolute [stuffing] out of you.”

For the record, Kelly — who spoke with the gruff, journalist-charming charisma you’d expect from a man who’s led the International Association of Fire Fighters since 2021 — did not say “stuffing.”

“I can’t think of another profession where you put 100 pounds of gear on just to go” on a routine call, said Kelly’s brother in gear, Sean DeCrane, a longtime Cleveland firefighter. Basic protective equipment, which includes an air tank, can weigh 45 pounds — and that’s before you add tools, axes, keys, tech like thermal imaging cameras and, of course, a hose.

“I’ve had high-rise fires where, you know, the elevators were out. You’ve got to walk 20-something stories up with all that stuff. It gets old quick,” Kelly told us. “And the good news is, when you finally get up there? That’s when the fight starts.”

When we Zoomed with Kelly, 50, he gestured to his crutches and jokingly diagnosed himself with “old age.” But as he later said, the reality is that pretty much any firefighter his age will suffer the compounded effects of working in a career that requires extreme exertion in dangerous, often deadly conditions.

But the job’s over-the-top dangers and demands don’t mean it requires some perfect, ideal physique. One of Kelly’s colleagues was a Vietnam veteran and ironworker who Kelly claims couldn’t have stood more than 5-foot-3 — “a little peanut of a man,” in his parlance. He was just one of many men and women who shattered stereotypes built by generations of fundraising calendars.

“I’ve seen guys that, you know, at first glance, you’d say they’re overweight and could never do the job,” Kelly said. “And then they not only prove different, you end up hanging on their coattails. There’s a time and a place for everything. Sometimes you need to run through the wall; sometimes you need to crawl through a space in the wall.”

One category that firefighters do not dominate, surprisingly: They do not have the wettest job in America. That honor goes to dishwashers. Other jobs that pretty much always involve liquids include nurse midwives, animal caretakers, cafeteria cooks and, of course, firefighters. But our comrades in the dish pit pull ahead of the pack when you look at how often the water hits.

About two-thirds of dishwashers are constantly or frequently exposed to water at work, well above any other profession. (In the always-precise vernacular of the BLS, frequently means more than one-third of the time. Constantly means more than two-thirds.)

On the plus side, depending on your temperament, washing dishes ranks among the jobs least likely to require speaking, along with machine tenders in factories.

And we reckon dishwashing requires the least education of any occupation in ORS. Their friends the fast-food and short-order cooks are about as likely to require no education at all, but dishwashers bubble up to the top by notching a huge number in an even more restrictive category: jobs that don’t require education or literacy to be performed well. About 38 percent of dishwashing jobs fit that bill.

Educational requirements tend to be well documented. We typically know which jobs require a GED, a BS, a PhD or a JD. But the crafty crew at ORS also measured two often-hidden job requirements: How much work experience and on-the-job training do you need?

The gnarliest learning curve in the American economy must be ascended by the folks who aspire to manage engineers (and architects). That job asks for 9.2 years of previous experience, the most of any occupation. That’s even more than the 8.4 years you need to be a CEO or the 7.7 years you need to be a physics professor.

Apparently ductwork doesn’t come naturally to hom*o sapiens, a species that evolved on the heat-pump-free savannas of Africa. HVAC mechanics and installers need an average of 6.1 months of on-the-job training to be decent, far more than anyone else. Even locksmiths need only 4.4 months, while the ultra-demanding work of firefighters only requires 4.1 months.

Ushers, on the other hand, need only three days of on-the job training, while school bus monitors need just two. But we wouldn’t tell anyone to count on a career as a school bus monitor. As we have reported, school buses, too, are at risk of going the way of the nut sorter.

Hi! The Department of Data is on a quest for queries. What are you curious about: How often do Grammy awards go to the most-listened-to musicians? Who exercises the most (and least)? Are kids today less likely to wear jackets in cold weather? Just ask!

If your question inspires a column, we’ll send you an official Department of Data button and ID card. This week’s goes to Drew DeSilver of the Pew Research Center, who pointed us to the nut sorter data. Meanwhile, if you want to be alerted as soon as we publish a new column, sign up here.