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Psychiatric Technicians vs Recreational Therapists

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

A factual, source-backed comparison of Psychiatric Technicians and Recreational 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.”

Psychiatric Technicians Recreational Therapists
Median pay · BLS OEWS
$42,590
$60,280
Employment · BLS OEWS
136,300
15,060
AI exposure (percentile) · task overlap, not automation
15th pct
16th pct

At a glance

Dimension Psychiatric Technicians Recreational Therapists
Median pay $42,590 $60,280
Employment 136,300 15,060
Employment outlook (2024–34) · BLS projection Growing fast (+20.0%) About average (+3.3%)
Annual openings · BLS projection 15,900 1,300
Typical education · O*NET Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree. Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.
AI exposure · published exposure studies Low · 15th pct Low · 16th pct
Global GenAI gradient · ILO ISCO-08 · via crosswalk 57th pct · 30% of tasks 32nd pct · 20% of tasks
Observed AI use · Anthropic Economic Index — Augmentation-leaning (63.1%)
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: Psychology, Social Perceptiveness, Therapy and Counseling, English Language, Active Listening, Monitoring, Oral Comprehension, Oral Expression, Problem Sensitivity, Customer and Personal Service, Speaking, Coordination, Reading Comprehension, Deductive Reasoning, Medicine and Dentistry, Critical Thinking, Service Orientation, Written Comprehension, Inductive Reasoning, Education and Training, Written Expression, Speech Recognition, Speech Clarity, Near Vision, Writing, Instructing, Information Ordering, Active Learning, Persuasion, Sociology and Anthropology, Learning Strategies, Negotiation, Complex Problem Solving, Judgment and Decision Making, Time Management, Category Flexibility.

Specific to Psychiatric Technicians

  • Public Safety and Security
  • Law and Government
  • Computers and Electronics
  • Selective Attention

Specific to Recreational Therapists

  • Administration and Management
  • Originality
  • Fluency of Ideas
  • Systems Analysis

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: Spreadsheet software , Office suite software , Electronic mail software , Word processing software , Medical software .

Specific to Psychiatric Technicians

Specific to Recreational Therapists

Full profiles

This page is a summary. See the complete source-backed profile for Psychiatric Technicians or Recreational 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. "Psychiatric Technicians vs Recreational 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/psychiatric-technicians-vs-recreational-therapists

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Psychiatric Technicians vs Recreational Therapists. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/compare/psychiatric-technicians-vs-recreational-therapists

BibTeX 
@misc{singulariki-psychiatric-technicians-vs-recreational-therapists,
  title  = {Psychiatric Technicians vs Recreational 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/psychiatric-technicians-vs-recreational-therapists}
}

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