Ironically, CareerCast.com also listed it as one of this year’s least stressful careers

You may be a vanishing species: CareerCast.com has placed jeweler on its list of most endangered jobs for 2015.

Ironically, in January the site also listed jeweler as one of America’s least stressful occupations, as it has for the last several years. 

Asked about the seeming contradiction, online content editor Kyle Kensing says that “growth outlook, as it pertains to this particular report, is a separate category from stress. While growth is a part of our methodology for stress, it’s one of just 11 factors, which include environmental conditions, hazards, [and] health and safety risk.”

Kensing says the “endangered” designation stems from a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) prediction that jeweler jobs will decline by 10 percent in 2022—which ranks it in the bottom 10 of the careers it tracks. Overall, U.S. employment is expected to rise 12.8 percent in those years.

The BLS based its forecast on three factors:

– Manufacturing is moving overseas.

– Traditional jewelers are losing market share to nontraditional competitors, although they still cater to a large customer base.

– New jewelry designers must grapple with increased competition.

On the bright side, the BLS predicts that bench skills will remain in demand, as many old-time craftsmen are calling it quits and custom work is becoming more popular. Jewelers may also gain business by servicing and repairing pieces sold by their nontraditional competitors.

Even if the “endangered” designation may rankle, other professions face even bleaker prospects (and apparently more stress): Technological changes mean that loggers, newspaper reporters, meter readers, and mail carriers will all see their job pool dry up in the next few years, CareerCast said.

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