newjerseynewsroom.com

My job sucks.

In fact, according to the new 2012 CareerCast.com Jobs Rated Report, only being a lumberjack out-sucks being a newspaper reporter or broadcaster.

“Many jobs in the media are characterized by high stress, short deadlines, long hours and a poor hiring outlook,” Tony Lee, publisher of CareerCast.com’s 2012 Jobs Rated Report, told aimgroup.com, a research and consulting firm for the classifieds industry. “Despite these poor working conditions, competition is steep for what jobs remain after massive consolidation and layoffs in the media industry.”

It was the first time those two media jobs made the “worst jobs” list.

"You can definitely see a decline in the industry,” said David Campbell, a Reporter and Editor for a Pennsylvania newspaper, in the report about the list on careercast.com. “As a sports reporter, there used to be several reporters at an event and now, sometimes, I'm the only one.”

Campbell noted that many young people don’t “seem to care about the news, and, if they do, it's more about celebrities and Hollywood and not what's going on in their backyards.”

The report said that the digital world has increased the demand for information as it happens. Indeed, there certainly has been increase in news first being reported on Twitter. Thus, the luster has worn off of the two once-glamorous positions.

While use of paper and wood products is still very common, the lack of people willing to do hard — not to mention dangerous — work has put lumberjack at the top of the list of worsts.

Not only does it pay poorly, ranking in the bottom 25 percent of all jobs according to the rankings, the job scored in the bottom 10 percent in all of the remaining ranking categories.

"It's not that the demand for the job is declining,” Jake Rosa, owner of Dry Brook Custom Sawmilling in Upstate New York, was quoted as saying in the report. “It's finding people who want to do it and work hard at it, that is declining. Nowadays, kids would rather play video games instead of working hard and getting their hands dirty."

Making the Worst Jobs list for the first time are enlisted military soldier, waiter/waitress, dishwasher and butcher. Rounding out the 10 worst are dairy farmer, oil rig worker and meter reader.

The top job for the second straight year, according to the report, is software engineer, followed by actuary, human resources manager, dental hygienist and financial planner.

---JOE GREENE, NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM