Conversation Starter: Taking Care of Animal Caretakers
Daniel Zhao
Chief Economist at Glassdoor | Apr 16, 2024
Many Americans added a new pet to their homes during the pandemic, which has increased demand for the workers who keep those pets healthy, clean and happy. Employment in pet and veterinary care services is up 18% from February 2020 to February 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But how do the workers who care for animals feel about their workplaces?
Unfortunately, many animal care workers report very low employee satisfaction. Out of 1,156 occupations with at least 30 employee satisfaction ratings on Glassdoor in 2023, animal care occupations rate particularly poorly.
Zookeeper ranks dead last as the occupation with the lowest employee satisfaction rating. Animal care technician (#4), pet groomer (#7) and veterinary technician (#12) are also near the bottom of the list.
Roles like pet trainer (#284), veterinarian (#340) and dog walker (#404) fare a little better but are still in the bottom half of occupations by employee satisfaction.
Employees’ Lowest Rated Occupations on Glassdoor in 2023
| Occupation | Overall Rating (Out of 5) | Rank (Out of 1,156 Jobs) |
| Zookeeper | 2.95 | 1 |
| Animal care technician | 3.00 | 4 |
| Pet groomer | 3.07 | 7 |
| Veterinary technician | 3.14 | 12 |
| Pet trainer | 3.54 | 284 |
| Veterinarian | 3.58 | 340 |
| Dog walker | 3.63 | 404 |
What might be going on here? Animal care work is physically demanding, often with low pay and high turnover. In their reviews, some animal care workers report feeling like they are taken advantage of for their love of animals.
Ultimately, animal lovers should consider who they are trusting their pets to. If you can’t trust your groomer or vet to treat their employees well, can you trust them to treat your pets well?
Methodology
Glassdoor ratings are from U.S. full-time or part-time employees for jobs held in 2023, aggregated to 1,156 Glassdoor-defined occupations with at least 30 employee satisfaction ratings.
Payroll employment data is from the Current Employment Statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data is updated through February 2024 but is from the March 2024 vintage because data for smaller subindustries is lagged by an extra month.
Conversation Starters are a periodic series of charts and data points from Glassdoor’s Economic Research team aimed at sparking conversations on timely trends in employee satisfaction, workplace community, the future of work, and the labor market more broadly.
Daniel Zhao
Daniel Zhao is Chief Economist at Glassdoor. On Glassdoor's Economic Research team, he has conducted research using Glassdoor's unique data on a variety of topics affecting job seekers and employers ranging from the health of the job market to pay transparency to employee engagement & retention. His work has been cited in publications like the New York Times, the Harvard Business Review and more. Prior to joining the Economic Research team, he also worked on improving the user experience for Glassdoor’s consumer jobs product and mobile app. He holds a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics and economics from Harvard College.
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