Dental Assistants hiring difficulty in Cleveland, OH
The public market difficulty score for Dental Assistants in Cleveland, OH is 6.1 out of 10, in the elevated band. National hiring demand for the occupation is weighed against local pay and local supply. BLS projects 53.0 thousand openings a year for this occupation on a 388.6 thousand employment base in 2025, or 13.6 percent, and employment growth of 7.4 percent from 2025 to 2035. Those two national figures are the same in every metro for this occupation. In Ohio, the December 2025 job openings rate for all industries, statewide, was 4.8%, above the U.S. rate of 4.0% that same month. The statewide hiring pace was 47.7 days, longer than the U.S. pace of 37.8 days (BLS JOLTS, total nonfarm). Ohio has 158 designated Dental Health shortage-area IDs, 1.3 per 100,000 civilian residents (HRSA, September 30, 2026). That state figure is used because this occupation practices in dental health. This metro has about the same share of these workers as the national mix. The location quotient is 0.99 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). OEWS counts 2.464 of these jobs per 1,000 jobs in the metro. That count is shown here and is not a score input. The metro median of $47,800 a year is within 3 percent of both the Ohio median of $47,970 and the U.S. median of $48,070 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). OEWS counts 2,540 jobs in this occupation in the metro (May 2025). No workplace count is shown for Cleveland. The provider-registry extract was built from Oklahoma and Texas city queries and stops at those metros. On healthcare employment in practitioner and support occupations, Cleveland sits at rank 25 in this set of 80 metros.
Demand from national projections, the local pay premium, and a supply modifier. How this score is built
Key numbers
JOLTS on this page is a statewide, all-industry figure. It is the same number for every role in Ohio. It is a December 2025 print, matched to the U.S. total-nonfarm print for that month.
Annual pay
Metro employment 2,540 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Location quotient 0.99. Jobs per 1,000 in the metro: 2.464. Metro area: Cleveland, OH.
| Percentile | Metro | OH | U.S. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25th | $42,130 | $42,660 | $44,340 |
| Median | $47,800 | $47,970 | $48,070 |
| 75th | $77,100 | $59,520 | $58,090 |
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Unpublished cells stay blank here.
Score components
| Component | Weight | Input | Score | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Projected openings | 18% | 13.6% | 9.1 | Annual projected openings divided by 2025 employment, 53.0 thousand openings on a 388.6 thousand base. BLS Employment Projections, 2025–2035. Higher rate, higher component. Scaled across the 20 occupations on this grid that have a projection. |
| Projected growth | 22% | 7.4% | 6.9 | Percent change in employment from 2025 to 2035. Same national figure in every metro. Higher growth, higher component. |
| Pay versus U.S. median | 40% | 0.99× | 4.9 | Metro median $47,800 divided by the U.S. median $48,070 for this occupation. Higher ratio, higher component. Ranked among the 1,733 scored pages. |
| Dental Health shortage areas | 8% | 1.3 | 2.4 | 158 designated Dental Health HPSA IDs in Ohio, per 100,000 civilian residents (population 11,893,865 on July 1, 2025). HRSA, September 30, 2026. Higher rate, higher component. |
| Location quotient | 8% | 0.99 | 5.4 | About the same share of these workers as the national mix. BLS OEWS, May 2025. Lower quotient, higher component, and only as a modifier. Ranked among the 1,733 scored pages. |
| Statewide labor market | 4% | 4.8% · 47.7 days | 9.3 | Mean of two ranks among 51 states and DC: the December 2025 total-nonfarm openings rate (component 9.2) and the hiring pace (component 9.4). Same number for every role in Ohio. |
Shown score 6.1 is the weighted average, rounded half up to one decimal. When this occupation is not a primary-care, dental, or mental-health match, the shortage weight is left out and the other weights are scaled to 100 percent. Full method
Closest metros for Dental Assistants
Straight-line miles between principal-city coordinates in the Census 2024 Gazetteer place file used by this site.
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