Healthcare social workers are one of the least happy careers in the United States.
At CareerExplorer, we conduct an ongoing survey with millions of people and ask them how satisfied they are with their careers. As it turns out, healthcare social workers rate their career happiness 2.8 out of 5 stars which puts them in the bottom 14% of careers.
To put this into perspective, we compared how happy healthcare social workers are to similar careers in the industry. Take a look at the results below:
Salaries and satisfaction ratings in similar careers
| Career | Satisfaction | Avg Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Personal care aide | 2.8 | $26k |
| Home health aide | 2.8 | $22k |
| Psychiatric technician | 2.8 | $37k |
| Family social worker | 2.8 | $49k |
| Medical administrative assistant | 2.8 | $37k |
| Healthcare social worker | 2.8 | $61k |
| Speech language pathologist | 2.7 | $79k |
| Substance abuse social worker | 2.7 | $49k |
| Orderly | 2.6 | $26k |
So what does it mean to be happy in your career? Let’s break it down into different dimensions:
- Salary: Are healthcare social workers happy with their salary?
- Meaning: Do healthcare social workers find their jobs meaningful?
- Personality fit: How well suited are people’s personalities to their everyday tasks as healthcare social workers?
- Work environment: How enjoyable are healthcare social worker’s work environments?
- Skills utilization: Are healthcare social workers making the best use of their abilities?
Are healthcare social workers happy with their salary?
Healthcare social workers rated their satisfaction with their salaries 2.6/5. Healthcare social workers tend to be quite unhappy with their salary, with very few reporting satisfaction with their pay.
We asked healthcare social workers how fairly compensated they are for their work.
Their response was:
2.6 out of 5 stars
205 healthcare social workers
7% of healthcare social workers rated their compensation 5 stars
20% of healthcare social workers rated their compensation 4 stars
27% of healthcare social workers rated their compensation 3 stars
24% of healthcare social workers rated their compensation 2 stars
22% of healthcare social workers rated their compensation 1 stars
Do healthcare social workers find their jobs meaningful?
On average, healthcare social workers rate the meaningfulness of their work a 3.2/5. Most tend to be satisified with the level of meaning they find in their careers.
We asked healthcare social workers how meaningful they found their work.
Their response was:
3.2 out of 5 stars
204 healthcare social workers
17% of healthcare social workers rated how meaningful they found their career 5 stars
30% of healthcare social workers rated how meaningful they found their career 4 stars
21% of healthcare social workers rated how meaningful they found their career 3 stars
17% of healthcare social workers rated how meaningful they found their career 2 stars
15% of healthcare social workers rated how meaningful they found their career 1 stars
How well are people’s personalities suited to everyday tasks as healthcare social workers?
Healthcare social workers rated their personality fit with their work an average of 3.6/5. The majority of healthcare social workers find their personalities quite well suited to their work, with relatively few having complaints about their fit.
We asked healthcare social workers how well their personalities fit into their careers.
Their response was:
3.6 out of 5 stars
219 healthcare social workers
22% of healthcare social workers rated their career fit 5 stars
37% of healthcare social workers rated their career fit 4 stars
26% of healthcare social workers rated their career fit 3 stars
8% of healthcare social workers rated their career fit 2 stars
7% of healthcare social workers rated their career fit 1 stars
How enjoyable is a healthcare social worker’s work environment?
As a whole, healthcare social workers rated their enjoyment of their work environment 3.2/5. Most of them tend to enjoy, or at least not be actively bothered by, their work environment.
We asked healthcare social workers how much they enjoyed their work environment.
Their response was:
3.2 out of 5 stars
215 healthcare social workers
16% of healthcare social workers rated their work environment 5 stars
27% of healthcare social workers rated their work environment 4 stars
30% of healthcare social workers rated their work environment 3 stars
18% of healthcare social workers rated their work environment 2 stars
9% of healthcare social workers rated their work environment 1 stars
Are healthcare social workers making the best use of their abilities?
Former healthcare social workers on CareerExplorer have rated their skills utilization 3.0/5. Healthcare social workers tend to feel that they don’t manage to use their abilities to their fullest, when compared to other careers.
We asked healthcare social workers how well their abilities were used in their careers.
Their response was:
3.0 out of 5 stars
218 healthcare social workers
12% of healthcare social workers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 5 stars
23% of healthcare social workers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 4 stars
26% of healthcare social workers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 3 stars
25% of healthcare social workers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 2 stars
13% of healthcare social workers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 1 stars