Veterinarians have taken the number one spot on Indeed’s “Best Jobs” list, in large part because Millennials and Gen Z are sticking to being pet parents, people who take tremendous care of their fur babies because they can’t afford to have human children. You know, because Boomers and Gen Xers ruined that for us with their terrible ideas, short-term thinking, and horrific nation-building skills.
As a Millennial who’s been taking care of a dog for just over 18 years now, I would like to cordially invite Gen Z folks into the world of pet parenthood. It’s a deeply fulfilling role that should spiritually sustain you until we join forces to seize power from older, stupider generations to craft a better world for ourselves that they’re clearly unfit to craft for us.
In the meantime, enjoy your dogs and cats and turtles and parrots and whatever. They are awesome and you are awesome for taking such good care of them.
With so many people under 40 dedicating so much time and care to their pets instead of children, it makes sense that we would not only need more veterinarians but that people would flock to that career. And there’s more to it than just the joy of animal care—veterinarians earn high salaries, there’s steady growth in the industry, and the job tends to have some surprisingly flexible hours.
The Indeed survey says veterinarians take in a median annual salary of $139,000 a year. Compared to the average American worker’s salary of $66,621 a year, vets are making a mint while hanging out with adorable animals all day.
Indeed also says the demand for veterinarians has surged, with job postings growing by 124 percent between 2021 and 2024, a boom that can be attributed to the fact that 45 percent of modern US households own a dog and 32 percent own a cat.
Of course, as I reported yesterday, a shocking number of jobs posted on sites like Indeed and LinkedIn are fake. It would be interesting to find out how many of these veterinary job listings fall into the “ghost job” territory.
A Pew Research report found that the proportion of young adults in the United States who say they are unlikely to ever have children has jumped significantly, from 37 percent in 2018 to 47 percent in 2023. Bleak! But can you blame us? It’s simply two generations, Millennials and Gen Z, reacting to the world we were handed.
If you’re a Boomer or Gen X complaining about the lack of grandchildren, please take a second to reflect on how your generation set the rest of us up for failure. Meanwhile, we’ll be having the time of our lives at the park with our dogs or delighting in watching our cats chase a laser dot.
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