42,390 aides: the care jobs St. Louis employs the most of, ranked by headcount
First by headcount. Nineteenth of 21 by wage. Two facts about one occupation code, from one row of one file.
Count instead of pay. Of the 21 care occupations this site tracks in the St. Louis metro, home health and personal care aides are the largest at 42,390 jobs. Registered nurses are next at 33,660, 8,730 behind. Nursing assistants are third at 14,360, about a third of the aide count.
Aides are 35 percent of the 121,150 jobs across these 21 occupations, and 58 percent of the 73,130 jobs in the healthcare support family on its own. In the same file, at the same pull, they rank 19th of 21 by median hourly wage, at $14.28. Only physical therapist aides at $14.00 and medical transcriptionists at $13.85 are paid less, and those two occupations together are 1,030 jobs.
So the most common care job in this metro is close to the worst paid one. That is not a view. It is two columns from the same row, printed side by side below.
| # | Occupation | Jobs | Median | Annual | # by wage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Home Health and Personal Care Aides 31-1120 | 42,390 | $14.28 | $29,700 | 19 |
| 2 | Registered Nurses 29-1141 · outside group 31 | 33,660 | $39.69 | $82,560 | 1 |
| 3 | Nursing Assistants 31-1131 | 14,360 | $18.66 | $38,820 | 12 |
| 4 | Childcare Workers 39-9011 · outside group 31 | 5,100 | $14.76 | $30,700 | 18 |
| 5 | Medical Assistants 31-9092 | 5,040 | $20.50 | $42,630 | 9 |
| 6 | Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses 29-2061 · outside group 31 | 4,860 | $30.07 | $62,540 | 3 |
| 7 | Dental Assistants 31-9091 | 3,400 | $22.70 | $47,220 | 7 |
| 8 | Social and Human Service Assistants 21-1093 · outside group 31 | 2,320 | $20.36 | $42,360 | 10 |
| 9 | Healthcare Social Workers 21-1022 · outside group 31 | 2,080 | $27.35 | $56,890 | 6 |
| 10 | Healthcare Support Workers, All Other 31-9099 | 1,310 | $17.40 | $36,190 | 15 |
| 11 | Physical Therapist Assistants 31-2021 | 1,050 | $29.77 | $61,920 | 4 |
| 12 | Veterinary Assistants and Laboratory Animal Caretakers 31-9096 | 1,020 | $17.03 | $35,430 | 17 |
| 13 | Massage Therapists 31-9011 | 750 | $29.08 | $60,480 | 5 |
| 14 | Phlebotomists 31-9097 | 680 | $20.17 | $41,960 | 11 |
| 15 | Occupational Therapy Assistants 31-2011 | 660 | $30.30 | $63,010 | 2 |
| 16 | Medical Equipment Preparers 31-9093 | 640 | $21.93 | $45,620 | 8 |
| 17 | Physical Therapist Aides 31-2022 | 580 | $14.00 | $29,120 | 20 |
| 18 | Medical Transcriptionists 31-9094 | 450 | $13.85 | $28,800 | 21 |
| 19 | Orderlies 31-1132 | 430 | $17.37 | $36,130 | 16 |
| 20 | Pharmacy Aides 31-9095 | 280 | $18.17 | $37,790 | 14 |
| 21 | Occupational Therapy Aides 31-2012 | 90 | $18.45 | $38,380 | 13 |
Jobs is the survey's employment estimate. Median is hourly; annual is the median annual wage for the same occupation. The last column is each row's position when the same 21 are sorted by median hourly wage instead. Rows marked outside group 31 are the five comparison occupations this site carries; the other 16 are the whole healthcare support family.
The inversion
Sort by wage and the top of the list is small. Registered nurses aside, the four best-paid occupations here employ 660, 4,860, 1,050 and 750 people. Sort by headcount and the top is cheap: four of the five largest occupations pay under $21 an hour, and the one that does not is registered nursing. A household budgeting for care hours is buying from the big cheap end of this table, which is exactly the end where a few cents of wage movement touches the most people.
What a headcount does not say
It counts jobs, not people. The survey counts positions on employer payrolls. A person holding two part-time aide jobs is counted twice, and a caregiver hired directly by a household, or working self-employed, is not counted at all.
It cannot split the aide count in two. Since the 2018 revision of the occupational classification, one code, 31-1120, covers both home health aides and personal care aides. The 42,390 therefore mixes work on a home health agency payroll with non-medical care in a living room, and nothing in this file says how much of each. This is not a count of non-medical caregivers. The difference between the two categories is laid out plainly on Home Care Check.
It says nothing about scope. Registered nurses and licensed practical nurses do clinical work. Home care aides as this site measures them do not, and a wage comparison is not a statement about what anyone is permitted to do.
It does not say what any of these hours cost to buy. No public dataset carries an agency's hourly price, the one commercial survey that collects prices forbids reprinting them, and this desk will not derive a price from a wage. The rate you are quoted has a wage inside it; this page is the wage.