Many employees see no social utility in their jobs, a University of Zurich study has found. This is true particularly in the finance, sales and management sectors.

This is the first study to “give quantitative support to the relevance of the occupations” in a feeling of pointlessness, says a University of Zurich (UZH) press release.

The late American anthropologist David Graeber theorised about this in his book “Bullshit jobs” (2018), while other researchers have suggested that the profession itself is of little importance and it is much more poor working conditions and a feeling of alienation that cause a feeling of pointlessness. Walo, a sociologist at UZH, wanted to find out for himself.

He analysed data from a survey of 1,811 people in the United States working in 21 different professions. The questions focused in particular on their feeling of “making a positive contribution to society” or “doing useful work”. He found that 19% of workers in all occupations answered “never” or “rarely”.