Truckers and programmers

Sometime in college, four decades ago, I came across a claim to the effect that there were more janitors in the labor force than there were lawyers, doctors, accountants and engineers combined.  It seemed an outlandish claim but when I checked the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it was correct.  

It was probably one of my first encounters with epistemic bubbles and the availability heuristic.  

A mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision. 

We all live in bubbles of knowledge and experience which shape many of our assumptions.  If you are upper middle income class, then you almost certainly know far more doctors, lawyers, accountants and engineers than you know janitors.  Regardless, the reality is that there are far more janitors than doctors, lawyers, accountants and engineers.

Given the trucker protests going on in Canada right now, it sparked the question in my mind - How many truckers are there compared to the number of programmers?  Computer programming is often held out to be one of those careers of the future and to a certain degree it is.

The catalyst for the question was in part based on the so frequent admonition "Learn to code" whenever a sector is losing jobs.  Trucking isn't losing jobs, it just doesn't have enough truckers.  And computers programmers have been in the class of upper income jobs which are comparatively easy to do virtually and remotely.

My career is in management consulting, much of it to do with IT implementations.  I am surrounded by computer programmers, project managers, etc.  I have always been aware of the availability bias.  What I didn't know was its magnitude.

How many computer programmers are there?  According to BLS, there are 178,140 computer programming jobs.  Far fewer than I would have instinctively guessed.

How many truckers are there?  According to BLS, there are 1,797,710 trucking jobs.  Somewhat more than I would have guessed.

There are ten times as many truckers as there are computer programmers.  

I knew about epistemic bubbles as well as the availability heuristic, and I actually guessed about 1.5 million trucking jobs, so not too far off.  But my estimate as to the number of computer programmers was dramatically higher than is the case.  

We, or at least I, constantly need to be reminded of reality.  

UPDATE:  A reader, known in some circles as Constantin, points out an error in my numbers.  I have mixed the colloquial term "computer programmers" with the BLS definition.  BLS has infinitely refined definitions of job categories.  For BLS, computer programming appears to be especially narrowly defined.  What I would broadly consider to be programmers would include BLS categories Computer and Information Analysts (category15-1210), Computer and Information Research Scientists (15-1220), Database and Network Administrators and Architects (15-1240), and Software and Web Developers, Programmers, and Testers (15-1250).  

Summing those, you arrive at 4,005,420 computer programmers in aggregate.  There is still room for debate as to whether all these would match what we expect when we speak of a computer programmer, but it is much closer to my original guestimate.  

Whew.  I can now hold my head much higher on my estimating while I simultaneously hang it in shame on my incomplete researching.  I should have recalled the cry of both classical orators and medieval dialectics - Distinguo!