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Critical Care Nurses vs Respiratory Therapists

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

A factual, source-backed comparison of Critical 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.”

Critical 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 Critical 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 Automation-leaning (48.0%) 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, Monitoring, Oral Comprehension, Problem Sensitivity, Psychology, English Language, Reading Comprehension, Active Listening, Speaking, Critical Thinking, Social Perceptiveness, Service Orientation, Oral Expression, Deductive Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning, Speech Recognition, Speech Clarity, Biology, Active Learning, Coordination, Complex Problem Solving, Judgment and Decision Making, Written Comprehension, Written Expression, Information Ordering, Near Vision, Mathematics, Perceptual Speed, Selective Attention, Education and Training, Writing, Finger Dexterity, Instructing.

Specific to Critical Care Nurses

  • Flexibility of Closure
  • Therapy and Counseling
  • Operations Monitoring
  • Fluency of Ideas
  • Speed of Closure
  • Sociology and Anthropology

Specific to Respiratory Therapists

  • Computers and Electronics
  • Learning Strategies
  • Time Management
  • Manual Dexterity
  • Chemistry
  • 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 , Office suite software .

Specific to Critical Care Nurses

Specific to Respiratory Therapists

Full profiles

This page is a summary. See the complete source-backed profile for Critical 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. "Critical 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/critical-care-nurses-vs-respiratory-therapists

APA

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

BibTeX 
@misc{singulariki-critical-care-nurses-vs-respiratory-therapists,
  title  = {Critical 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/critical-care-nurses-vs-respiratory-therapists}
}

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