Americans recommend medical, tech jobs as top career options: poll

When it comes to career options, Americans most likely recommend medical and technology jobs for both young men and women, a new Gallup poll has found.

The March 9-29 poll showed that 14 percent of Americans recommend young men pursue a job in the medical field, while 24 percent recommend it to young women.

Meanwhile, 13 percent of Americans recommend young men pursue a job in the technology field, while 11 percent recommend it to young women.

The other top career recommendations by Americans include a job in the fields of trades/industrial/blue collar, at 9 percent for young men and 5 percent for young women, in the fields of business/self-employed/sales, at 7 percent for young men and 5 percent for young women, and in engineering field, at 5 percent for young men and 3 percent for young women.

Apart from recommending specific career fields, nearly one in five Americans say young men (19 percent) and women (18 percent) should work in a field they like or that they are going to school for, according to the poll.

After declining in the 1980s and 1990s, the medical field re-emerged as a suggested career in the 2000s, with steady increases for both men and women. Recommendations for women to enter the field peaked at 37 percent in 2009, Gallup said.

From 1949 to 1973, from 9 percent to 19 percent of Americans recommended that young men seek a profession in law or government. But recommendations for a job in law or government have declined to 3 percent to 5 percent since 1985.

During this same period, blue-collar jobs -- including industrial, trade and construction jobs -- received few if any mentions. But blue-collar jobs have become more popular as the recommendations to young men for a blue-collar job have increased to 12 percent in 2017 -- the highest since 1950.

When Gallup first asked about career advice for young women in 1950, teaching (16 percent) and secretarial jobs (8 percent) were among the top recommendations.

Americans' recommendations to young women for teaching and secretarial jobs have steadily declined since 1950 when Gallup first did this survey.

The recommendations for a teaching job for young women have declined to 3 percent in 2017 from 16 percent in 1950, while recommendations for a secretarial job have declined to only 1 percent.

The survey shows that Americans are now more inclined to advise young people to seek careers that suit them best, rather than make a specific recommendation.

"This could reflect a number of changes in the nation's job market -- the rise of the gig economy, in which short-term and freelance work is common, uncertainty for the future of some fields, or a growing tendency for people to change jobs multiple times in their career," it said. Endit