Personal care aides are one of the least happy careers in the United States.
At CareerExplorer, we conduct an ongoing survey with millions of people and ask them how satisfied they are with their careers. As it turns out, personal care aides rate their career happiness 2.8 out of 5 stars which puts them in the bottom 20% of careers.
To put this into perspective, we compared how happy personal care aides are to similar careers in the industry. Take a look at the results below:
Salaries and satisfaction ratings in similar careers
| Career | Satisfaction | Avg Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Occupational therapist | 2.9 | $66k |
| Registered dietitian | 2.9 | $53k |
| Ophthalmic medical technician | 2.9 | $21k |
| Psychiatric aide | 2.9 | $29k |
| Optician | 2.9 | $23k |
| Personal care aide | 2.8 | $25k |
| Home health aide | 2.8 | $25k |
| Family social worker | 2.8 | $28k |
| Licensed practical nurse | 2.8 | $41k |
| Medical administrative assistant | 2.8 | $19k |
So what does it mean to be happy in your career? Let’s break it down into different dimensions:
- Salary: Are personal care aides happy with their salary?
- Meaning: Do personal care aides find their jobs meaningful?
- Personality fit: How well suited are people’s personalities to their everyday tasks as personal care aides?
- Work environment: How enjoyable are personal care aide’s work environments?
- Skills utilization: Are personal care aides making the best use of their abilities?
Are personal care aides happy with their salary?
Personal care aides rated their satisfaction with their salaries 2.6/5. Personal care aides tend to be quite unhappy with their salary, with very few reporting satisfaction with their pay.
We asked personal care aides how fairly compensated they are for their work.
Their response was:
2.6 out of 5 stars
1581 personal care aides
10% of personal care aides rated their compensation 5 stars
15% of personal care aides rated their compensation 4 stars
27% of personal care aides rated their compensation 3 stars
22% of personal care aides rated their compensation 2 stars
25% of personal care aides rated their compensation 1 stars
Do personal care aides find their jobs meaningful?
On average, personal care aides rate the meaningfulness of their work a 3.3/5. Most tend to be satisified with the level of meaning they find in their careers.
We asked personal care aides how meaningful they found their work.
Their response was:
3.3 out of 5 stars
1587 personal care aides
22% of personal care aides rated how meaningful they found their career 5 stars
27% of personal care aides rated how meaningful they found their career 4 stars
22% of personal care aides rated how meaningful they found their career 3 stars
15% of personal care aides rated how meaningful they found their career 2 stars
14% of personal care aides rated how meaningful they found their career 1 stars
How well are people’s personalities suited to everyday tasks as personal care aides?
Personal care aides rated their personality fit with their work an average of 3.8/5. The majority of personal care aides find their personalities quite well suited to their work, with relatively few having complaints about their fit.
We asked personal care aides how well their personalities fit into their careers.
Their response was:
3.8 out of 5 stars
1690 personal care aides
32% of personal care aides rated their career fit 5 stars
34% of personal care aides rated their career fit 4 stars
20% of personal care aides rated their career fit 3 stars
9% of personal care aides rated their career fit 2 stars
6% of personal care aides rated their career fit 1 stars
How enjoyable is a personal care aide’s work environment?
As a whole, personal care aides rated their enjoyment of their work environment 3.2/5. Most of them tend to enjoy, or at least not be actively bothered by, their work environment.
We asked personal care aides how much they enjoyed their work environment.
Their response was:
3.2 out of 5 stars
1693 personal care aides
17% of personal care aides rated their work environment 5 stars
27% of personal care aides rated their work environment 4 stars
28% of personal care aides rated their work environment 3 stars
18% of personal care aides rated their work environment 2 stars
10% of personal care aides rated their work environment 1 stars
Are personal care aides making the best use of their abilities?
Former personal care aides on CareerExplorer have rated their skills utilization 2.8/5. Personal care aides tend to feel that they don’t manage to use their abilities to their fullest, when compared to other careers.
We asked personal care aides how well their abilities were used in their careers.
Their response was:
2.8 out of 5 stars
1693 personal care aides
14% of personal care aides rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 5 stars
17% of personal care aides rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 4 stars
23% of personal care aides rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 3 stars
24% of personal care aides rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 2 stars
22% of personal care aides rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 1 stars