32.9 percent of employees had regular outdoor exposure in 2022

Seasonal wildfires are becoming increasingly common in western states, and more recently northeastern and midwestern states have also felt their effects. People who work outdoors are especially affected by wildfires. Overall, 32.9 percent of workers in 2022 were exposed to the outdoors as a regular part of their job. Among the occupations with the most outdoor exposure are cement masons and concrete finishers, construction laborers, firefighters, highway maintenance workers, landscaping and groundskeeping workers, and roofers.

These data are from the Occupational Requirements Survey. To learn more, see “Occupational Requirements in the United States – 2022.” An occupation has outdoors exposure when workers perform critical tasks outdoors and are unprotected and exposed to the elements. For more information on concepts and definitions in the survey, see the Handbook of Methods.