Which jobs barely existed in 1950?

Of the jobs we track, 47 have no count from 1950 or earlier and no record as a distinct job before 1941. The largest today is medical assistants: BLS counted 817,870 in May 2025 (BLS OEWS).

Data as of: BLS OEWS May 2025, and the year of the earliest cited count for each job.

How this list was made

• A job is listed when its timeline has no employment count from 1950 or earlier and records no distinct occupation before 1941. Rows are ordered by the latest count, largest first; the order is by size only.
• The first column gives the year of the first count on the timeline and whether it is an estimate. Many are estimates from a trade body, a professional association or a historian.

What these numbers cannot tell you

• Only the year of the first count is shown here, not the count. Early counts measure many different things (training programs, ambulance units, the charter members of a society, a category that combined several jobs), so they are not set beside today's BLS count. Each timeline shows its first count with a note on what it covers.
• No count from 1950 or earlier does not mean nobody did the work: some of these jobs grew out of older ones under other names.

Sources

• BLS OEWS national estimates, May 2025
• Each row also names the exact sources for its own figures.

Explore these jobs by industry

• Healthcare
• Tech & Data
• Engineering
• Business & Finance
• Education
• Healthcare Support

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