9 Jobs with High Depression Rates

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In case you are looking for a new career, this list of 9 jobs with high depression rates will help you choose which professions to avoid.It is extremely hard to explain depression to someone who has never suffered from it. After all, we all feel a bit under the weather once in a while. You watch a sad movie, listen to a few songs about lovers torn apart and few glasses (bottles in extreme circumstances) you’re back to being your old cheerful self. Sound simple enough. But in case of depression, nothing is simple. Imagine feeling sad and hopeless all the time, but being forced to smile and feign happiness so that people around you would stop pestering you with questions. Most of the time they mean good, but in the long run, all they do is make you feel even worse. That’s depression in a nutshell. A constant state of helplessness interrupted by bouts of anxiety.

Every year, 15 million cases of depression are diagnosed in the United States alone. Currently, 10% of the entire US population is suffering from some form of depression. What is worrying is the fact that 60-80% of all cases are quite treatable with a relatively short therapy that combines psychotherapy and medications.

Apart from directly affecting people who suffer from it and their families and friends, depression has a strong economic impact on society. First, ever growing medical costs are burdening already straining health care system. Second, a much larger price is extracted from the loss of productivity at the work place. People with depression can’t perform as well as healthy workers. A study published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in 2003 claimed that the total economic impact of depression is $83 billion annually, with a major chunk of it claimed by the loss of productivity.

Naturally, some professions are more prone to depression than others. What seems to be a deciding factor whether a job is susceptible to high depression rates or not is interaction with people. 8 out of 9 high depression jobs on our list include some form of human services, be it education, public transit or health care that cause a lot of stress. Interestingly enough, this list overlaps with the 10 highest suicide rates by profession in only few fields. It would be reasonable to expect that both lists are nearly identical, but it seems that jobs with high depression rates are more suited to deal with it.
The only categories that have higher depression rates than the jobs on our list are unemployed and recently divorced. So if you are looking for a job, try to stay away from these.

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