Credentialed vet techs earn a median of $17.72/hour after completing a degree program, so 29% plan to leave the profession within two years

A credentialed veterinary technician completes a two- to four-year accredited degree program, passes a national licensing exam, maintains continuing education credits, and then enters a job that pays a median of $17.72 per hour — less than many retail and warehouse positions that require no formal education. The result is predictable and devastating: 29% of credentialed vet techs say they are 'very likely' to leave practice within the next two years, and another 29% say they are 'somewhat likely' to leave. The five-year attrition rate for vet techs has remained unchanged since at least the 1990s. Turnover among credentialed vet techs runs at 26% annually — the highest of any medical professional category. This is not just an HR problem. Every vet tech who leaves costs a practice roughly $24,000 in recruitment and training expenses. More critically, when vet techs leave, the remaining staff absorbs their caseload, which accelerates burnout among the survivors and creates a vicious cycle. Emergency clinics that cannot staff vet tech positions are forced to divert patients or close overnight entirely. The staffing shortage is the number one reported issue in veterinary emergency care, cited by 78% of emergency practices in 2024. The structural reason this persists is that veterinary medicine has never established compensation benchmarks tied to credentialing the way human medicine has for nurses, PAs, and radiology techs. In many states, an uncredentialed 'veterinary assistant' with zero training can perform nearly the same tasks as a credentialed vet tech, which suppresses wages for everyone. The National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America (NAVTA) has been pushing for title protection and scope-of-practice laws, but as of 2024, only 21 states have meaningful title protection. Until credentialing translates into both protected scope and higher pay, the pipeline will keep hemorrhaging talent faster than schools can produce it.