Massage Therapist Employment

With a growing number of healthcare professionals referring patients to massage therapists for many different health issues and with the educational standards now requiring state licensure, the profession is growing and therefore the job outlook for current students and therapists is estimated to continue to grow over the next several years and beyond.

Job Outlook

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 118,000 massage therapists employed in 2006. It is estimated that from 2006 to 2016, that number will increase by 20%. As the profession continues to grow, more opportunities in more areas of healthcare will become available for therapists. Although massage therapy is well known and becoming more rapidly accepted by both healthcare practitioners and health insurance companies, it is recommended that a graduate begin their massage career as a part-time job before committing to full-time hours. The reason for this being that a successful therapist builds a wide referral base within a community to achieve the salary that they desire. Positive feedback and recommendations from previous clients as well as referrals from other healthcare providers are the best forms of advertising for a therapist.  However, these forms of advertising take time and generally require the therapist to have some other type of employment in order to financially survive in the beginning months or years as a massage therapist.

References Cited in this Article

www.bls.gov

www.edinformatics.com