It is no secret that we live in extremely challenging economic times with historically high unemployment and if you’re interested in a dental assisting career, you may be asking yourself “How much do dental assistants make?”. It has become very difficult to secure employment given these circumstances combined with a hyper-active job market. One possible recession-proof career you may want to consider pursuing is that of a dental assistant. A dental assistant is integral to maintaining a smoothly run dental office. A dental assistant has a variety of important responsibilities, including taking x-rays, educating patients about oral health care and aiding the dentist perform procedures on patients. Job prospects for dental assistants are expected to be strong and the salary can be worthwhile given the minimal educational and training requirements for dental assistants. Let’s take a closer look.
Job prospects look to be outstanding for dental assistants, as dentists continue to have heavy workloads regardless of economic circumstances. Patients will always require oral health care and this fact bodes very well for prospective dental assistants. Prospects look strong for both entry-level assistants as well as more experienced and skills ones. The Bureau of Labor Statistics actually anticipates dental assistants to be one of the fastest growing occupations over the next decade and predicted employment to grow 36 percent from 2008-2018. If you are asking yourself “Just how much do dental assistants make?”, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median yearly wage of dental assistants was roughly $32,000 in May 2008. The bottom 10 percent earned approximately $22,000 and the top 10 percent earned about $46,000. It really is possible to earn a decent living as a dental assistant especially when you take into consideration the fact that educational and training requirements are not very rigorous. It is possible to receive on-the-job training for an entry level dental assistant position after high school. If you do become a dental assistant, you may even advance your career by becoming a dental hygienist or dentist down the road.
It is important to pursue recession-proof careers given the challenging economic times we live in. It is possible to earn a very solid living as a dental assistant. You can pursue this career path after completing high school. You may even consider advancing to a career as a dental hygienist or dentist down the road after gaining valuable experience working as a dental assistant. Hopefully, this article has helped answer the question “So how much do dental assistants make anyway?”
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