More than a million Tennesseans are exposed to the outdoors as part of their occupation, with a quarter million workers spending more than one-third of their workday outside.

The work environment for about a third of Tennessee employees involves at least some exposure to the outdoors. That can range from brief excursions, such as a driver dropping a package or teachers taking students outside for recess, to the near-constant outdoor work of roofers, masons, and groundskeepers.

In total, 1.08 million of the state’s 3.27 million jobs in 2024 had some level of outdoor exposure. The majority of those, over 828,000, were limited to seldom or occasional requirements to be outdoors for no more than a third of the workday.

Summer’s arrival in July and August can push Tennessee’s average daily high temperatures to near 90 degrees or hotter. And that can make for a tough day for occupations requiring longer durations of exposure.

Constant outdoor exposure is required for 4.1 percent of U.S. workers, meaning more than two-thirds of their workday is spent outside. This translates to an estimated 134,000 Tennesseans who spend most of their day working outdoors. Another 121,000 of the state’s workers, or about 3.7 percent of jobs, require outdoor exposure ranging from one-third to two-thirds of the workday (Figure 1).

Figure 1:  Occupational Requirement for Time Spent Working Outdoors by Tennessee Workers as a Share of Total Employment (2024)

The data about outdoor exposure comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Requirements Survey (ORS), which provides detailed information on occupational training requirements and work conditions. Combined with annual occupation data for the state, it can be used to estimate the size of the Tennessee workforce with outdoor job requirements.

Occupation Sector, Exposure, and Duration

Exposure to the outdoors and the duration of time spent outside are both covered in the ORS data. They help to highlight key differences among the major occupation groups.

Transportation and material moving occupations had the largest number of Tennessee workers who spent part of their workday outside, with 58 percent of workers in this occupation group having outdoor job requirements. This amounted to more than 212,000 of the sector’s 368,000 jobs across the state in 2024 (Figure 2). Key occupations in this sector include light and heavy truck operators. It also includes laborers, stockers, and order fillers who handle the materials being shipped, often in a warehouse setting. Those types of positions helped to limit the duration of the outdoor exposure for the sector, with only 12 percent of those job duties requiring workers to be frequently or constantly outside (Figure 3).

That contrasts with construction and extraction occupations, for which 92 percent of jobs included outdoor work—the highest among all sectors. In 2024, nearly 117,000 Tennessee construction and extraction workers were regularly exposed to the outdoors, with 61 percent spending more than one-third of their day working outside. For construction laborers, the largest occupation within the sector, the levels were even higher. About 86 percent of the 25,400 workers in this career area were frequently or constantly outside.

Figure 2: Estimated Tennessee Workers with Outdoor Exposure for Major Occupation Sectors

Protective services was another notable occupation sector, with over 89 percent of employees exposed to outdoor conditions—the second highest rate among all occupation groups. The survey, however, does not report the duration of outdoor exposure for these occupations, which includes law enforcement, firefighting, and various security/safety services in the private sector.

Figure 3: Percent of Workday Exposed to Outdoors for Selected Occupation Groups

Construction Leads Growth of Occupations Requiring Outdoor Work

The addition of positions requiring outdoor work has kept pace with Tennessee’s overall employment growth over the past five years. Jobs in the state grew by 8.9 percent between 2019 and 2024 and added 267,000 new positions according to the Occupational and Wage Employment Survey. 89,000 of those positions required outdoor work, good for a 9.1 percent increase.

The construction and extraction occupation sector grew by 26.4 percent and led the state’s growth in the number of jobs requiring outdoor exposure. The outdoor-intensive sector added an estimated 24,400 new positions that required some outside work (Figure 4). The fastest-growing occupations in this sector were all subject to significant outdoor exposure. This included construction laborers, electricians, equipment operators, and supervisors. The number of construction laborers grew by 7,450 workers over the last five years to lead the sector (Table 2).

Source: Occupational Requirements Survey (2023) and Occupational and Employment and Wage Statistics (2019, 2024), Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The transportation and material moving sector added the second most outdoor jobs with an increase of 16,700 positions since 2019. The demand for light truck drivers was among the leading factors in the sector’s growth over the past five years. Those drivers play a key role in the courier and express services industry, which has seen its employment grow 75 percent nationally in the past 10 years. This is at least partly fueled by the increasing prevalence of e-commerce and the integration of home delivery into regular consumer purchasing habits.

Maintenance and repair-related positions saw the third-largest increase. 16,420 of the 20,680 jobs that the sector added have an outdoor requirement. This broad sector encompasses maintenance and service for buildings, vehicles, and other infrastructure. (Figure 5)

Figure 5: Tennessee Employment Growth by Occupation from 2019 to 2024