This story from BusinessWeek – Worst Jobs with the Best Pay – may only interest me. The title made it worth the read. Let’s start with a stat from the article:
A recent Salary.com survey found that 65% of workers plan to look for a new job within the next three months. The most common reason for leaving? Not enough pay.
None of that is surprising to me. In fact, that reason sounds like the easiest to provide in a survey. I would question how many are leaving due to their direct boss or the company culture. The reason I speculate on this topic is found later in the article:
In most cases, though, workers said a 10% salary increase would be enough to make up for their jobs’ shortcomings…
10%? That seems low to me.
Well, the article then turns to the worst job with a great payout – crab fishing. I am an avid viewer of Deadliest Catch on Discovery channel. The show documents the intense crab fishing season in great detail. These guys jeopardize their lives on these ice-laden boats in the Bering Sea. If you wondered why, read no further than this tidbit:
There was always a top boat where the crew members raked in $50,000 during the three- to five-day king crab season – or $100,000 for the longer snow crab season.
If you watch the show, I guarantee you would think long and hard about whether $50K is worth what they have to do to earn it.