Hiring/South Carolina/Physician Assistants
Physician Assistants hiring difficulty in Columbia, SC
The public market difficulty score for Physician Assistants in Columbia, SC is 4.2 out of 10, in the elevated band. Metro median pay is $115,840 a year, under both the South Carolina median of $122,490 and the U.S. median of $135,880 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). This occupation's share of jobs in Columbia is close to its share of U.S. jobs. The location quotient is 0.97 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). In South Carolina, the December 2025 job openings rate for all industries, statewide, was 4.1%, near the U.S. rate of 4.0% that same month. The statewide hiring pace was 29.9 days, shorter than the U.S. pace of 37.8 days (BLS JOLTS, total nonfarm). OEWS counts 400 jobs in this occupation in the metro (May 2025). No workplace count is shown for Columbia. The provider-registry extract was built from Oklahoma and Texas city queries and stops at those metros. This set of 80 metros places Columbia at rank 68 for healthcare employment in practitioner and support occupations.
Average of three ranked components, shown to one decimal. 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 South Carolina. It is a December 2025 print, matched to the U.S. total-nonfarm print for that month.
Annual pay
Metro employment 400 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Location quotient 0.97. Metro area: Columbia, SC.
| Percentile | Metro | SC | U.S. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25th | $107,400 | $105,560 | $120,670 |
| Median | $115,840 | $122,490 | $135,880 |
| 75th | $131,440 | $134,100 | $163,980 |
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Unpublished cells stay blank here.
Score components
| Component | Input | Score | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local supply | 0.97 | 5.4 | Location quotient, BLS OEWS, May 2025. Lower quotient, higher component. Ranked among the 1,953 published pages. |
| Statewide openings rate | 4.1% | 6.3 | Total nonfarm, all industries, South Carolina, December 2025. Higher rate, higher component. Ranked among 51 states and DC. |
| Statewide hiring pace | 29.9 days | 0.8 | Openings ÷ hires × 365.25 ÷ 12, from 103 thousand openings and 105 thousand hires. Higher days, higher component. |
Shown score 4.2 is the average, rounded half up to one decimal. Full method
Closest metros for Physician Assistants
Straight-line miles between principal-city coordinates in the Census 2024 Gazetteer place file used by this site.
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