Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
A worker's worth
Economy | Human resources | Jobs
August 2, 2022 – On-the-job training has an impact that is felt through a worker’s lifetime. Work experience—both soft skills and hard skills—contributes to almost half of an employee’s total wealth, according to the latest report from the McKinsey Global Institute, which tracked data from four countries. In India in particular the effect is even greater, with work experience accounting for nearly 60 percent of lifetime earnings. Click through to the interactive below to see more results.
To read the report, see “Human capital at work: The value of experience,” June 2, 2022.
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Visual form
Slide-based occupation comparison chart that combines donut shares, stacked value labels, and salary-growth area fills.
Layout / body structure
Each slide presents two occupations side by side using the same three-part template. At the top of each occupation panel sits a donut for lifetime earnings split, then a short row of stacked percentage blocks for select years, and below that a 30-year salary path showing how the blue work-experience portion grows above the darker entry-level-skills base.
What is being compared
The chart compares occupations by how much of lifetime earnings come from work experience versus entry-level skills. The visible slides compare Commercial pilots with Physicians, and Restaurant servers with Maintenance and repair workers, while tracing salary by year 1, year 10, year 20, and year 30.
Measurement system
The vertical salary charts use nominal currency in thousands of dollars, while the donuts and stacked labels use percentage shares. Blue represents the share of earnings associated with work experience and dark navy represents the share associated with entry-level skills.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Commercial pilots show a 72/28 lifetime split and Physicians show 38/62, with their salary profiles climbing to about 4.7x and 2.3x initial salary by year 30. Restaurant servers show 57/43 and Maintenance and repair workers show 29/71, with much flatter salary paths that still widen modestly over time. The select-year blocks above each chart echo the same split at years 10, 20, and 30.
Main takeaway from the visual
The chart shows that the payoff from work experience varies sharply by starting occupation. Jobs like commercial pilot rely heavily on experience for lifetime earnings growth, while occupations such as physicians or maintenance and repair workers retain a much larger share tied to entry-level skills and a flatter growth path.
Key standout values or extremes
The strongest visible lifetime work-experience share is Commercial pilots at 72 percent, followed by Restaurant servers at 57 percent. Physicians are much lower at 38 percent and Maintenance and repair workers are lowest on the shown slides at 29 percent. The biggest salary-multiple endpoint is 4.7x initial salary for Commercial pilots, while Maintenance and repair workers finish at 1.8x.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a slide-based sequence. The reader steps through different occupation pairings that reuse the same template rather than filtering one chart in place.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart is the full visual on this page.