City market profile
Salem, OR OT job market
Compare Salem, OR using BLS occupational therapist wage, employment, density, and concentration data from the May 2025 OEWS release.
Metro rank #182$109,330 mean wage140 OT jobs0.72 location quotient
Market snapshot
How Salem, OR compares for occupational therapists
The OT Index city score balances pay, role depth, role density, and occupational concentration. The wage and job-market measures stay visible so readers can understand the rank.
Our take
Salem, OR OT market assessment
Why it stands out
- Mean pay is $13,300 above the metro midpoint in this dataset. That is a real earnings advantage before any individual offer is considered.
- The estimated job base is 1.1 times the typical metro here, which usually gives clinicians more leverage to change employers without relocating.
Tradeoffs that matter
- The 0.72 location quotient shows OT is less concentrated here than in the national workforce, which weakens the case that this is an OT-centered labor market.
- OT jobs per 1,000 workers also fall below the metro midpoint, reinforcing that local opportunity is not especially dense.
What to compare next
- Compare Salem, OR directly with Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA: the wage and job-count gap shows whether staying in the same state materially changes your options.
- Use the Oregon state profile to tell whether this metro is carrying the state or benefiting from a stronger market elsewhere.
- Compare the setting mix behind the job count. A metro dominated by schools or home health may be a poor fit even when total OT employment looks healthy.
Methodology
Why this metro scores where it does
Metro rankings are most useful when the score is read beside the raw measures. A high-wage city can still have a shallow market, while a dense market can still have weaker pay.
Mean annual wage40%
BLS OEWS mean annual wage for the metro.
Employment depth25%
Log-scaled employment count so deeper markets count without letting the largest metros dominate.
Employment density20%
Occupational therapist jobs per 1,000 local jobs.
Job concentration15%
BLS location quotient, which compares the local concentration of OT jobs with the national labor market.
Nearby comparisons
Other Oregon metro markets
Compare this metro against nearby labor markets before using a single city score to make a relocation or negotiation decision.
| Metro | Score | Mean wage | Employment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA Rank #82; 0.58 LQ | 47.6 | $114,410 | 730 |
| Bend, OR Rank #145; 0.86 LQ | 41.9 | $111,340 | 100 |
| Eugene-Springfield, OR Rank #169; 0.73 LQ | 40.6 | $111,110 | 120 |
| Medford, OR Rank #292; 0.65 LQ | 31.9 | $102,050 | 60 |
Salem, OR is a workable middle-tier OT market, but not a place the labor data strongly favors. Its case is driven by pay, not the rank alone. 140 jobs provide more employer choice than the typical metro in this dataset.