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Recreational Therapists vs Occupational Therapy Aides

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

A factual, source-backed comparison of Recreational Therapists and Occupational Therapy Aides 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.”

Recreational Therapists Occupational Therapy Aides
Median pay · BLS OEWS
$60,280
$37,370
Employment · BLS OEWS
15,060
5,000
AI exposure (percentile) · task overlap, not automation
16th pct
9th pct

At a glance

Dimension Recreational Therapists Occupational Therapy Aides
Median pay $60,280 $37,370
Employment 15,060 5,000
Employment outlook (2024–34) · BLS projection About average (+3.3%) About average (+2.5%)
Annual openings · BLS projection 1,300 600
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 Low · 16th pct Low · 9th pct
Global GenAI gradient · ILO ISCO-08 · via crosswalk 32nd pct · 20% of tasks 18th pct · 15% of tasks
Observed AI use · Anthropic Economic Index Augmentation-leaning (63.1%) Augmentation-leaning (60.8%)
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, Therapy and Counseling, Customer and Personal Service, Education and Training, Service Orientation, English Language, Active Listening, Speaking, Social Perceptiveness, Coordination, Oral Comprehension, Oral Expression, Speech Clarity, Reading Comprehension, Writing, Critical Thinking, Instructing, Written Comprehension, Written Expression, Problem Sensitivity, Deductive Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning, Speech Recognition, Information Ordering, Complex Problem Solving, Active Learning, Learning Strategies, Monitoring, Persuasion, Time Management, Medicine and Dentistry, Judgment and Decision Making, Category Flexibility, Near Vision.

Specific to Recreational Therapists

  • Sociology and Anthropology
  • Administration and Management
  • Originality
  • Negotiation
  • Fluency of Ideas
  • Systems Analysis

Specific to Occupational Therapy Aides

  • Computers and Electronics
  • Public Safety and Security
  • Finger Dexterity
  • Trunk Strength
  • Administrative
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness

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

Specific to Recreational Therapists

Specific to Occupational Therapy Aides

Full profiles

This page is a summary. See the complete source-backed profile for Recreational Therapists or Occupational Therapy Aides — 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. "Recreational Therapists vs Occupational Therapy Aides." 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/recreational-therapists-vs-occupational-therapy-aides

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Recreational Therapists vs Occupational Therapy Aides. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/compare/recreational-therapists-vs-occupational-therapy-aides

BibTeX 
@misc{singulariki-recreational-therapists-vs-occupational-therapy-aides,
  title  = {Recreational Therapists vs Occupational Therapy Aides},
  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/recreational-therapists-vs-occupational-therapy-aides}
}

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