Opticians Salary Report

[MakeOptics]

I have been working on a few big data projects and am about to put them together to create a report.

The report will include:

Percentage of ABO/NCLE certificants in a geographic area.
Percentage of certificants with active certifications.
Salary data percentiles: 10, 25, 50, 75, 90
Number of Opticians employed in an area
Number of opticians per 1000 employed people in an area.
How saturated the area is with Opticians.

The goal is to provide a valuation for an optician based on experience, certification, years certified, flexibility in hours, education, and personality.

I am working out a weighting system and getting ready to put a report together, what's something like this worth to opticians? Employers?

On the employers end, I am working on a questionnaire/personality profile along with a module to come up with a optimal offer when hiring employees, how much would something like that be worth?

[wmcdonald]

I applaud your efforts, but you should know that this work is already done by NAO annually and the Summit also just published this data and far more. I hope you have a lot of takers that support your efforts. You did leave out one glaring issue, however, licensure. Is that just not a consideration in the 22 states requiring a license? I would also like to see how you measure saturation.

I hope I have not come across negatively here, and only offer the above as an FYI. Again, we need more of this kind of research, and I congratulate you on taking the initiative.

[MakeOptics]

I applaud your efforts, but you should know that this work is already done by NAO annually and the Summit also just published this data and far more. I hope you have a lot of takers that support your efforts. You did leave out one glaring issue, however, licensure. Is that just not a consideration in the 22 states requiring a license? I would also like to see how you measure saturation.

I hope I have not come across negatively here, and only offer the above as an FYI. Again, we need more of this kind of research, and I congratulate you on taking the initiative.

No negativity taken, I haven't seen that report yet and don't see it available. I am cross referencing a number of databases and licensure can be one I can potentially add in.

The summit info (vague):

Licensing Data

• There are 30,000 ABO cetificants and 10,000 NCLE certificants
• In 2011 ABO tested 4,800 individuals and NCLE tested 1,700

General Population Data

• 151.4 million U.S. adults currently use Rx Eyeglasses
• 27.2 million U.S. adults currently use OTC Readers
• 203.3 million U.S adults currently use Plano Sunglasses
• 37.6 million U.S. adults currently use Contact Lenses
• 26.2 million U.S. adults currently use Rx Sunglasses

*Statistics provided by The Vision Council's VisionWatch Report on Vision Correction Usage (December 2011)
Future Demand for Eye Care

• 19.6% of consumers ages 18+ surveyed said they were planning on having an eye exam in the next 3 months. As a comparison, in December of 2010, 18.9% of consumers said they planned on having an eye exam in the next 3 months; so the number is rising.

*Statistics provided by The Vision Council's Consumer Barometer Report (December 2011)

I have the ability to narrow it down to the county/zip-code level. Saturation is something unique I am pulling from a number of databases the algorithm is not difficult, the difficulty is getting the data and cleaning it to play nice. I have a total of 15 different databases I am pulling from currently with over 1 million+ records. I have found in the past that most of the data is not available without numerous subscriptions to organizations and significant level of data manipulation to get record sets to correlate. This is something I have been working on automating to create a single report and provide the ability to analyze value.

Licensing would be a difficult task as you mention 22 states have 22 different databases with various levels of access and different qualifications making it difficult to provide a value to any one license compared to another. I may have to take a look at the requirements, time to complete, and continuing education and see if a point system can be applied to weight a score for licensing. The NCOSRB was working towards a common set of guidelines which would have made comparisons significantly simple. I may be able to provide a separate category for the licensed states with a broader range of value based on the above mentioned criteria.

The report would be ideally geared towards an optician or employer to identify wage opportunities within a geographic area.

[rbaker]

Unfortunately, the empirical method of supply and demand will trump any effort to quantify any wage standard or recommendation.

[wmcdonald]

It may, Dick, but in most fields there is a great deal of research done, and it is often beneficial. In this field, the education levels are so low many do not see any need for the data, and could not understand it if it were presented. But by using this kind of approach, we can surely learn more about ourselves, and how we might improve. I look forward to seeing the outcomes.

[MakeOptics]

Unfortunately, the empirical method of supply and demand will trump any effort to quantify any wage standard or recommendation.

Optician has the info - they can negotiate a better salary.
Employer has the info - they can reduce wages while maximizing opportunities.

I am going to generate revenue either way, it is more lucrative to focus my efforts towards employers as the optician market has very little capital to invest in bettering themselves, but why not double check the pulse and offer another opportunity.

Employers can get great insight into the pool of prospective employees when looking at saturation, certification, and the general health of the optician community within their vicinity. I can share with you some stats that are more detailed then the summary provided by the summit.

State

Sqare Miles

# Certificants

# Active Certificants

% Active Certificants

ABO Certificants

NCLE Certificants

ABO Active

NCLE Active

% ABO

% NCLE

% ABO Active

% NCLE Active

Certificants per Sq Mi

Active Certificants per Sq Mi

OR

98380

1199

590

49%

934

265

461

129

78%

22%

49%

49%

0.012187

0.005997

That's just a state listed in your location which is nice to know information, but combine that with other databases and I can tell you how many optician work with a certain mile radius of you and what percentage are likely to be certified and have current certifications. Combine that with salary data, a personality test, and a few other databases I am not currently at liberty to discuss and I can get you some really great info about what you are worth. Or I could provide that information to the other side of the negotiating table, knowledge is power my friend I hope to provide it to whomever values it.