RNs Among Unhappiest Workers

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For the 10 unhappiest jobs in America in 2012, registered nurses snagged one of the top spots.

Job satisfaction can be elusive for many people and health care jobs can be trying on an individual. Sure they can pay well, but there’s long hours, lots of responsibility and a load of stress. In October, CareerCast had three health care jobs in its list of top 10 overrated jobs.

CareerBliss has just ranked the happiest and unhappiest jobs in America for 2012 and one health care industry job made the top 10. With an average salary of $60,857, registered nurses (RN) ranked as the second unhappiest.

Rating jobs from one as poor to five as good, RNs had a bliss rating of only 3.549. The only workers unhappier are security officers with 3.51.

As proof that money isn’t everything, a number of the unhappiest jobs have pretty high salaries. The average salary for the fourth unhappiest job, sales engineer, is $71,283; fifth ranked product manager is $81,865; sixth ranked program manager is $94,371 and eight ranked director of sales is $91,821.

Jobs that paid less and had less responsibilities (e.g. the career means being in charge of less people) populated the happiest jobs list. Tellers only make $26,928, but they ranked fourth happiest. Executive chefs make an average of $58,735, but they were the second happiest.

And the happiest job, according to CareerBliss, is software quality assurance engineer with a rating of 4.245 and an average salary of $66,403.

Unhappiest Jobs

1. Security Officer

Salary: $29,641

2. Registered Nurse

Salary: $60,857

3. Teacher

Salary: $43,663

4. Sales Engineer

Salary: $71,283

5. Product Manager

Salary: $81,865