We are pleased to report that CareerCast.com has once again listed “statistician” as one of the top jobs in 2014 in the US, coming in at #3 in its “Jobs Rated Report.” (“Mathematician” was rated #1, followed by “University Professor (Tenured).”
We’ve written previously in this blog about where to find information about statistics as a career, noting a March 4, 2014, article in the Careers section of Science magazine. The article highlighted continued demand for jobs in traditional areas of statistics, but emphasized the increasing demand for data scientists. The article described data science as “a fusion of statistics, computer science, and analytics in which researchers analyze large quantities of data, identify meaningful trends, and then find a way to exploit the resulting knowledge.” Several prominent statisticians were quoted in that article.
In the today's Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the CareerCast.Com jobs report, the labor force needs for people with quantitative skills is again highlighted. The article notes: “It’s no secret that quantitative skills are in high demand on the job market—one analytics recruiter recently told The Journal that workers who can’t crunch numbers may ultimately face a ‘permanent pink slip.’”
It appears to us that, across the spectrum of business, industry, and government, a thirst for understanding through data is driving up demand for people with the skills to quench it.
If you are interested in more information about careers in statistics, please see the March 14 and March 15 “ASA at 175” blog posts on this topic.
We keep saying this is a great time to be a statistician, and evidence of that keeps mounting. The job outlook is strong. Statisticians do meaningful work, work that makes a difference in people’s lives, work that requires years of training, work that most people do not have the skill or dedication to do. This is the kind of job a person should rightfully be proud of, a profession that should be highly ranked.
If you are a statistician, and would like to tell the world the story of the work you do, contact the ASA’s Jeff Myers (jeffrey@amstat.org) about how to make a contribution to “At Work with Statisticians” on The World of Statistics website. Or, you can read here about how to contribute an article about your work or the work of others you know.
In 2014, the American Statistical Association is celebrating its 175th anniversary. Over the course of this year, this blog will highlight aspects of that celebration, and look broadly at the ASA and its activities. Please contact ASA Executive Director Ron Wasserstein (ron@amstat.org) if you would like to post an entry to this blog.