This selection of pictures taken from the Evening News archive illustrates the incredible variety of jobs people do - from street sweeping to ceiling restoration, firefighting to foot massage and coal mining to crisp making.
Scroll through the old photos and get a glimpse of what working life was like three decades ago.
5. Casket for Sean Connery
Stan Smith, engraver at Edinburgh jewellers Hamilton & Inches, in April 1991, working on a walnut and silver casket to be presented to Sean Connery at the Freedom of the City ceremony later that year. | TSPL Photo: Bill Henry
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6. Archaeologists excavating
Edinburgh archaeologists excavating the Holyrood brewery site before work begins on a new development, June 1991. | TSPL Photo: Jack Crombie
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7. Sun Microsystems
A worker at the Sun Microsystems electronics factory in Linlithgow assembles an SPARCstation IPX , August 1991. | TSPL Photo: Hamish Campbell
8. Operating theatre
Gowned and masked theatre staff working in the operating theatre at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children ('Sick Kids') in Edinburgh, September 1991. | TSPL Photo: Graeme Hunter