Voyaging Through U.S. Jobs

In honor of Labor Day, you may want to check out Job Voyager by Flare. It provides a graphical history of the rise and fall of different types of jobs in the United States from 1850 to 2000.

Here’s what you get for “Farmer”:

Back in 1850, farmers accounted for more than 40% of reported jobs. Today, less than 1%.

If you click around, you will find that the decline in farmers has been offset by growth in a host of jobs, including clerical, retail, and nurses.

And economists? Well, we grew rapidly until 1990, and then tailed off. Perhaps the would-be economists ran off to Wall Street instead?

P.S. The Job Voyager charts were inspired by the famous Name Voyager charts that let you track the popularity of first names.