15 Professions With the Highest Suicide Rates in America

Page 1 of 15

Professions with the highest suicide rates in America pose an interesting question. Are there extremely poor working conditions prevalent in these occupations that ultimately cause their workers to take their own lives or is it just a coincidence that people who commit suicide happen to be in a select few professions more than others?

Well, I’d say that I lean towards the first option. I feel that since your job takes up so much of your time (more than 8 hours a day for most), your otherwise deteriorated mental state may well improve if you’re satisfied with your job. If you’re not, you’d likely feel bleaker than ever. And job satisfaction, for the most part, comes from good working conditions. Of course, I certainly don’t claim to be an expert so if you are having suicidal thoughts, get help! I cannot stress that enough. There is help out there for you. Even if you are part of one of the occupations in the United States with the highest incidence of suicide, things are never hopeless and you deserve better than the horrible fate of suicide.

Professions With the Highest Suicide Rates in America

Bundit Yuwannasiri/Shutterstock.com

But like I said before, your job plays a huge part in making you feel the exact opposite, so much so that some unfortunate people actually commit the act at their workplace. The Atlantic reports that such suicides have been on the rise and while they generally increase during economic recessions, some people just do it to save their family from stumbling upon the grisly sight.

You see, as The Atlantic also notes, it is always hard to pinpoint one concise reason for a person committing suicide. So the question I posed above becomes even more difficult to answer. Are jobs with the most suicides inherently bad jobs? Are professions with the highest depression rates, or professions with the highest divorce rates, or professions with the highest alcoholism rates for that matter ingrained with qualities that lead to unfortunate circumstances? Well if you look at the 11 Professions with the Highest Suicide Rates in Australia, the items on that list do coincide with some on our list. Does that mean it’s not just poor working conditions prevalent in the US that have caused these occupations to be flagged as such, but some issues with the job itself? I’ll need more data to expound on that but let’s note that America makes an appearance on the 10 Countries with the Highest Youth Suicide Rates in the World while Australia does not.

Moving on, let me tell you how I compiled the highest suicidal job rates 2017. I referred to this federal study carried out by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention released in July 2016. Unfortunately, the data used in the study pertains to 2012 which is admittedly a little old, but it is the latest available so we will have to make do. For the ranking, we took into account the rates of suicide per 100,000 population rather than the absolute number of suicides. As the study only analyzes data from 17 states, the rate is much more appropriate as it can be prorated to calculate data for the entire country, something the number of suicides cannot achieve. Furthermore, data has been divided by occupational group, and if that confuses you, you can always head on over to the Bureau of Labor Statistics to find out exactly what jobs each occupational group entails. Now without further ado, let’s finally list what appear to be professions with the highest suicide rates in America.

15. Healthcare Support

Rate of suicide per 100,000 population: 14.6

While our list begins with healthcare support occupations, let me just say that the suicide rate here is actually not very high, even reasonable, when compared to the ones that topped this list. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t get too complacent as even a single suicide is an extremely traumatic experience and a huge blow for the person who experiences it as well as his or her family.

Professions With the Highest Suicide Rates in America

Tyler Olson/Shutterstock.com

Page 1 of 15