West coast, best coast — at least when it comes to being happy at work.
In a new report released on Wednesday, social technology company Brandwatch and jobs site Monster analyzed over 1.1 million tweets on career sentiment from March 2014 to March 2015 to figure out which workers across the country were the happiest with their careers.
And turns out workers on the West Coast were as sunny as California when it comes to their jobs — the top ten happiest states were concentrated out West.
The only outliers for happiness were Maine and Arkansas. (Yes, Arkansas.)
The survey showed that workers on the East Coast are pretty well paid, but a high salary won’t keep them from bashing their jobs on social media. Florida came in dead last, followed by West Virginia, Delaware, Virginia.
Software engineers, barista, designers, teachers, and technicians were some of the careers where workers were more likely to log onto Twitter to humblebrag #ilovemyjob (which was mentioned in 185,378 tweets and 252 retweets over the course of the study).
Morning show! What a blast! 5:30 am =S #earlymorning #xlgcoffee #gottawakeupearly #ilovemyjob https://t.co/ABReeCywMf— Maria Jose Marteli (@MajoMarteli) June 2, 2015
#ilovemyjob! At ProTide meeting last wk, visiting #tidal energy device construction &a #hydropower plant! @TidalTim pic.twitter.com/PiIlkrT2e7— Raeanne Miller (@RaeGMiller) June 1, 2015
Shootin some farm-grown doggie treats today #photography #saycheese #ilovemyjob #freelance #soglam https://t.co/QfYSbnywpn— Gina Mallonee (@GinaMallonee) May 31, 2015
So nice to actually be in a job where I'm not dreading going in tomorrow. Only took 15 years of working to be career content #ilovemyjob— Sarah Gregson (@sargregson) May 31, 2015
Government workers, healthcare employees, retail workers, truck drivers, paralegals, and administrative assistants were more likely to turn to social media to tell the world #ihatemyjob (mentioned in 8051 tweets and 16 retweets). Other popular hashtags among jobs haters included #fml, #worksucks, and #retailproblems.
Workers in the tech industry are less likely to tweet negative things about their jobs — a fact that the study attributes to tech workers being more in tune with the potential consequences of publicly trashing your job.
Not surprisingly, job hate was more likely to surface on social media in July when people would probably rather be at the beach than at their place of business. And people tended to have a more positive attitude about their jobs in November, a fact perhaps attributable to the pre-holiday business boom.
The survey also shows that workers dread going back to work on Monday morning, with 76% of respondents reporting what the report calls “Sunday night blues.” And those blues can sometimes be the last straw for unhappy workers — 20% of new job searches begin on a Monday.
So go west young, unhappy workers, towards the sunshine and job satisfaction.