Stockers Rank First for Opportunity Relative to Measured Formal Preparation

Stockers and order fillers ranked first among 747 complete-case occupations in MyTopMatch's Opportunity-to-Barrier Index. The occupation combined an Opportunity score of 79.27 with a measured Barrier score of 37.50, producing Opportunity Efficiency of 70.89, reported as 70.9.

The score reflects market scale, projected openings and growth, geographic breadth, compensation, and formal preparation. Stockers' pay component was 11.0 out of 100. The result therefore does not label the occupation the best career overall; it identifies a strong combination of scale and access under the defined measure.

Opportunity and barrier remain visible

The Opportunity pillar gives equal weight to median pay, openings rate, log annual openings, projected growth, log employment scale, and geographic breadth. The Barrier pillar gives equal weight to BLS typical entry education, related work experience, on-the-job training, and O*NET Job Zone.

Highly skewed count variables are log transformed. Each component is oriented so a higher value means more of the named construct, converted to a robust z-score, and mapped through the standard normal cumulative distribution to a 0–100 score. Opportunity Efficiency equals 50 plus one-half of the difference between Opportunity and Barrier.

The leader was stable; exact ranks were less stable

Stockers and order fillers ranked between first and fourth when each component was omitted in turn. The broader table moved more under reasonable alternatives: the weakest top-decile retention was 64%, and the median span between an occupation's 5th- and 95th-percentile simulated ranks was 69 positions.

MyTopMatch therefore emphasizes high-scoring tiers, component values, and sensitivity measures. A tenth of an index point should not be read as a meaningful difference in a worker's lived opportunity.

Licensing and job quality are outside the primary score

The primary Barrier score measures typical formal preparation. It does not contain a nationally complete occupation-by-state legal-requirement matrix. Missing licensing records are never treated as evidence that no license exists. The public result also omits benefits, schedule predictability, injury risk, turnover, worker voice, commuting constraints, and advancement quality.

How to use the result

A job seeker can use a high score to begin a local investigation: review current openings, hourly pay, scheduled hours, benefits, physical demands, training, equipment and software expectations, transportation, and advancement paths. Employers and workforce organizations can examine which screens predict retention, safety, performance, and progression.

What this research cannot establish

• A personal hiring probability or fit judgment.
• Universal employer requirements or complete legal access.
• Job quality or advancement quality.
• A causal effect of low formal preparation on opportunity.
• A permanent ranking under future releases or every reasonable specification.