Just as a doctor needs the right instruments to do their work and a carpenter needs their tools, voice is a primary tool of trade for many working people. Imagine how difficult it would be to communicate with suppliers, coworkers or customers without the use of your voice. At least one in four of all working people would find it impossible to pursue their professions of choice, while others may even put public safety at risk should their voices become disabled.
These workers and professional are currently some of the people most at risk when it comes to needing your voice to be able to do your daily work successfully.
Salespeople compose about 12% of workforce; those in telephone sales constitute a smaller percent of the workforce, but make up 2.3 percent of people who seek help at voice centres.
Nurses, doctors, flight controllers... all need their voices as a matter of life and death.
Teachers represent approximately 5 % of workforce. However, this group constitutes almost 20 percent of the voice-clinic load, a five-fold disproportion which is both alarming and remarkable.
Receptionists and public relations workers
Lawyers and judges who regularly speak in court are only about 0.1 percent of the workforce. Unfortunately, information about their appearance at voice clinics is currently unknown.
Clergy, psychologists, counselors and speech-language pathologists
Telephone operators make up 0.13 percent of the workforce and are 0.4 percent of the clinical voice load.
Interviewers/recruiters
Actors, directors, broadcasters and singers are a difficult group to measure. Many individuals in this group pursue entertainment on a part-time or hobby basis. However, an interesting subgroup was singers, which was estimated as 0.02 percent of the workforce, while the sampled clinic load was 11.5 percent.