ORLANDO, Fla. — White-collar occupations account for approximately 46% of Florida jobs, outpacing both hands-on and service-oriented work, according to a new SmartAsset analysis.
About 31% of Florida jobs fall into the study’s pink-collar category, while 23% are blue-collar. Florida ranked 39th among states for its concentration of blue-collar employment.
The study, published Oct. 27, analyzed May 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics employment estimates.
What the different collars mean
The labels group occupations by their work:
- Blue-collar: Hands-on jobs, including construction, manufacturing, transportation and skilled trades.
- White-collar: Professional, managerial, office and administrative work.
- Pink-collar: Service-oriented occupations, including personal care and food service. The category describes jobs, not workers’ genders.
What makes a job gold-collar
SmartAsset separately classified 62 occupations as gold-collar: jobs typically requiring at least a bachelor’s degree and paying a national median wage above the 90th percentile for all occupations.
Examples include physicians, lawyers, software developers, aerospace engineers and nurse practitioners.
Gold-collar positions account for approximately 5.1% of Florida employment, ranking the state 21st. They overlap the other categories rather than representing an additional share.
How other states compare
Indiana had the highest blue-collar concentration, at approximately 33%. Maryland led white-collar employment at about 52%, while Nevada had the largest pink-collar share, at roughly 35%.
Washington and Massachusetts led gold-collar employment, each at approximately 7.4%.
What the study measures
The analysis counts wage-and-salary jobs rather than individual people. It excludes self-employed workers and most farm workers.
Gold-collar classification reflects occupational requirements and national wages, not every worker’s education or earnings. SmartAsset also cautions that small differences between states may not be statistically meaningful.
The report describes employment composition; it does not measure jobs lost to AI or automation.
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