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Acute Care Nurses vs Respiratory Therapists

Side-by-side · O*NET · BLS · AI-exposure research · Anthropic Economic Index

A factual, source-backed comparison of Acute Care Nurses and Respiratory Therapists on the dimensions both occupations carry. Every figure is a position within an independent published dataset — not a verdict on which job is better, safer, or more “future-proof.”

Acute Care Nurses Respiratory Therapists
Median pay · BLS OEWS
$93,600
$80,450
Employment · BLS OEWS
3,282,010
136,420
AI exposure (percentile) · task overlap, not automation
39th pct
12th pct

At a glance

Dimension Acute Care Nurses Respiratory Therapists
Median pay $93,600 $80,450
Employment 3,282,010 136,420
Employment outlook (2024–34) · BLS projection About average (+4.9%) Growing fast (+12.1%)
Annual openings · BLS projection 189,100 8,800
Typical education · O*NET Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not. Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
AI exposure · published exposure studies Moderate · 39th pct Low · 12th pct
Global GenAI gradient · ILO ISCO-08 · via crosswalk 47th pct · 25% of tasks 57th pct · 30% of tasks
Observed AI use · Anthropic Economic Index Augmentation-leaning (69.2%) Augmentation-leaning (80.3%)
Mostly remote-capable · Dingel–Neiman No No

Pay and employment are BLS OEWS estimates; outlook and openings are BLS 2024–2034 projections; AI exposure and observed-use figures come from separate research and reflect exposure and usage, not predictions that either job will disappear. Compare like with like.

Skills

Shared: Medicine and Dentistry, Customer and Personal Service, Education and Training, Oral Comprehension, Written Comprehension, Oral Expression, Problem Sensitivity, Reading Comprehension, Speaking, Critical Thinking, Service Orientation, Deductive Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning, English Language, Active Listening, Writing, Active Learning, Monitoring, Social Perceptiveness, Coordination, Complex Problem Solving, Judgment and Decision Making, Written Expression, Information Ordering, Near Vision, Speech Recognition, Speech Clarity, Psychology, Instructing, Time Management, Biology, Learning Strategies, Selective Attention.

Specific to Acute Care Nurses

  • Therapy and Counseling
  • Administration and Management
  • Public Safety and Security
  • Category Flexibility
  • Flexibility of Closure
  • Persuasion
  • Systems Evaluation

Specific to Respiratory Therapists

  • Perceptual Speed
  • Computers and Electronics
  • Manual Dexterity
  • Finger Dexterity
  • Chemistry
  • Mathematics
  • Science

Knowledge, skills & abilities O*NET rates as important for each occupation. “Shared” are common to both; the columns list what is distinctive to each (top by the order O*NET surfaces).

Tools & technology

Shared: Medical software , Data base user interface and query software , Spreadsheet software , Office suite software , Electronic mail software , Presentation software , Word processing software .

Specific to Acute Care Nurses

Specific to Respiratory Therapists

    Full profiles

    This page is a summary. See the complete source-backed profile for Acute Care Nurses or Respiratory Therapists — tasks, the full skill graph, tools, work context, preparation, wages by percentile, industries, AI exposure and the AI work map.

    More comparisons

    Related occupations you can place side by side on the same sourced scale.

    Sources for this page

    Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

    Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

    Cite this page
    Plain

    Singulariki. "Acute Care Nurses vs Respiratory Therapists." Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Built from O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans; ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025; IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022; Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/compare/acute-care-nurses-vs-respiratory-therapists

    APA

    Singulariki. (2026). Acute Care Nurses vs Respiratory Therapists. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/compare/acute-care-nurses-vs-respiratory-therapists

    BibTeX 
    @misc{singulariki-acute-care-nurses-vs-respiratory-therapists,
  title  = {Acute Care Nurses vs Respiratory Therapists},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans; ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025; IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022; Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/compare/acute-care-nurses-vs-respiratory-therapists}
}

    Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.