Recent employee changes in the steel mill building.

Professions reflect the types of jobs that pops carry out in the buildings where they work. A pop's profession determines its social stratum and affects its base wage, what other professions it might qualify for, and particularly which political interest groups it's prone to supporting. Investing in industries that provide job opportunities for the professions the player wants to encourage in their country is key to the "society building" gameplay of Victoria 3.

Profession types

There are 15 pop professions (and an unemployed status) divided into 3 strata:

Lower strata

Profession	Starting standard of living	Wage multiplier	Base Literacy target	Dependent income	Special
Clerks	7	1.5	20%	0.5
Farmers	7	1.5	0%	0.5
Laborers	5	1	0%	0.5	Default pop type Can always be hired (i.e. no qualifications)
Machinists	7	1.5	10%	0.5
Peasants	5	0.2	0%	0.25	Consumption multiplied by 10% before adding to state consumption
Servicemen	7	1.5	0%	0.5	Can always be hired (i.e. no qualifications)
Slaves	1	0	0%	0	50% workforce ratio Needs are purchased by workplace

Middle strata

Profession	Starting standard of living	Wage multiplier	Base Literacy target	Dependent income	Special
Academics	10	4	80%	0.5	+50% Education access
Bureaucrats	10	4	40%	0.5
Clergymen	10	3	80%	0.5	+50% Education access
Engineers	10	3	80%	0.5
Officers	10	5	50%	0.5
Shopkeepers	10	2	20%	0.5

Upper strata

Profession	Starting standard of living	Wage multiplier	Base Literacy target	Dependent income	Special
Aristocrats	20	6	60%	0.0	20% workforce ratio
Capitalists	20	6	70%	0.5

Employment

Pops are hired into available jobs based on their profession or other professions they are qualified for. Pops which cannot be hired into any building are unemployed. Buildings cannot hire pops who do not have the qualifications for the profession in question.

Except for unemployed pops, in order to move to another building a members of a pop must be offered a 10% higher wage than the wage they are currently getting from their current employment. If the new position is a different profession, they must also be qualified for that profession.

Employment is always kept roughly equal, so – for example – a building cannot hire a full slate of laborers unless it can also hire at least 90% of each of the other professions it requires.

Wages

Each building has a base wage, which is multiplied by each profession's wage multiplier. Thus, a building with a base wage £1 pays its laborers £1, its machinists £1.5, its engineers £3, etc. As a building can only adjust its base wage, all professions maintain the same ratio. Discriminated pops receive 33% less wages for their profession and other modifiers may affect wages as well.

Buildings raise their base wage primarily to attract employees when it cannot otherwise fill empty positions. Very profitable buildings may also raise wages if the employees are below the expected standard of living as long as they are accepted; conversely, unprofitable and moderately profitable buildings decrease wages to restore profitability. Thus states with a large, well-qualified population tend to have lower wages, at least until the buildings in the state have employed all of the pops. States with a limited number of qualified workers have higher wages on average.

Qualifications

List of potentially qualified engineers in the state of Lower Egypt.

A pop's qualifications measure how many of its workforce qualify for different professions. The number of qualified members within that pop is updated on a monthly basis depending on how well their current properties match up to the expectations of the profession in question. For example, a pop's potential to become an engineer is increased if they have a higher literacy, are wealthier, or work in an adjacent field such as a machinist. The number of potential engineers continues to rise as long as they meet the profession's required qualifications. Different professions have different requirements. For example, at least a basic education level is required to become a machinist while a much higher one is required to become an engineer. Conversely, the ability to become an aristocrat is less about education and more about social class and wealth.

Qualified members being hired by a building are split to a new pop belonging to the new profession and the workforce size of the old pop is reduced by an equal number. If all the qualified members for a certain profession were hired then the old pop won't accumulate any more members for that profession. The new pop's members retain the qualifications of their old profession. For example, newly hired engineers which used to be machinists retain their machinist qualifications. Furthermore, if those new engineers used to be farmers before becoming machinist then they would retain their farmer qualifications as well.

Like all pop attributes, qualifications follow the pops as they split, merge, move between buildings, migrate, and die. Thus unless new pops are given the option to acquire the qualifications for a certain profession, then when the old pop dies away there are no qualified pops to replace them. This leads the buildings that require them to underperform until such pops arrive in the state by some other way.

References

1. To update page content see reference files in folder /Victoria 3/game/common/pop_types:
   1. Each profession has its own txt file (named after the profession).