City market profile
Shreveport-Bossier City, LA OT job market
Compare Shreveport-Bossier City, LA using BLS occupational therapist wage, employment, density, and concentration data from the May 2025 OEWS release.
Market snapshot
How Shreveport-Bossier City, LA 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
Shreveport-Bossier City, LA OT market assessment
Why it stands out
- The estimated job base is 1.2 times the typical metro here, which usually gives clinicians more leverage to change employers without relocating.
- 6 other Louisiana metros create realistic nearby alternatives if the first offer or setting is not a fit.
Tradeoffs that matter
- Mean pay is $1,190 below the metro midpoint in this dataset, so the market does not compensate for other weaknesses with above-typical wages.
- The 0.90 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 Shreveport-Bossier City, LA directly with Alexandria, LA: the wage and job-count gap shows whether staying in the same state materially changes your options.
- Use the Louisiana 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.
BLS OEWS mean annual wage for the metro.
Log-scaled employment count so deeper markets count without letting the largest metros dominate.
Occupational therapist jobs per 1,000 local jobs.
BLS location quotient, which compares the local concentration of OT jobs with the national labor market.
Nearby comparisons
Other Louisiana 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexandria, LA Rank #94; 1.57 LQ | 46.1 | $99,100 | 100 |
| Slidell-Mandeville-Covington, LA Rank #109; 1.79 LQ | 45.0 | $85,660 | 180 |
| Baton Rouge, LA Rank #153; 1.01 LQ | 41.4 | $94,010 | 430 |
| Monroe, LA Rank #171; 1.44 LQ | 40.6 | $89,800 | 130 |
| New Orleans-Metairie, LA Rank #190; 0.83 LQ | 39.7 | $96,710 | 390 |
| Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux, LA Rank #221; 1.32 LQ | 37.3 | $87,550 | 120 |
Shreveport-Bossier City, LA is a role-specific choice rather than a broadly strong OT market at #241. No single labor measure is exceptional, so its position comes from being reasonably balanced across the model. 150 jobs provide more employer choice than the typical metro in this dataset.