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Nursing Assistants

SOC 31-1131 · 2024-2034

Provide or assist with basic care or support under the direction of onsite licensed nursing staff. Perform duties such as monitoring of health status, feeding, bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, or ambulation of patients in a health or nursing facility. May include medication administration and other health-related tasks. Includes nursing care attendants, nursing aides, and nursing attendants.

How the U.S. Department of Labor describes this work. Published in English only.

What California expects of this job

Typical pay in California
$48,836per year
Projected openings
172,680
Projected change
+10.3%
Usually needs
Postsecondary non-degree award

Bright Outlook — a U.S. Department of Labor designation
Numerous Job Openings

The Department's own designation, made from its national projections. It is not this project's assessment and it is not California's: every other figure on this page comes from California's projection, which can point the other way and for some occupations does.

Skills this work uses most

O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, rates how important each of these is to this work, and they are listed in that order, most important first. The ratings themselves are not shown, because the data carries the number without the scale it was measured on. The names are as published, in English.

  1. Service Orientation
  2. Social Perceptiveness
  3. Active Listening
  4. Monitoring
  5. Coordination
  6. Speaking

Pay by region

RegionTypical pay in CaliforniaProjected openings
San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City MD (San Francisco and San Mateo Counties)$59,9405,720
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara MSA (San Benito and Santa Clara Counties)$57,8187,780
Oakland-Fremont-Berkeley MD (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties)$52,7539,680
San Rafael MD (Marin County)$52,511970
Napa MSA (Napa County)$49,437590
Vallejo MSA (Solano County)$48,9431,280
Salinas MSA (Monterey County)$48,8501,360
Eastern Sierra-Mother Lode Region (Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Inyo, Mariposa, Mono, and Tuolumne Counties)$48,820440
Santa Rosa-Petaluma MSA (Sonoma County)$48,7371,580
Santa Cruz-Watsonville MSA (Santa Cruz County)$48,059510
San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad MSA (San Diego County)$47,92515,020
Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom MSA (El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, and Yolo Counties)$47,5758,350
Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine MD (Orange County)$47,51612,980
Santa Maria-Santa Barbara MSA (Santa Barbara County)$47,5031,730
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale MD (Los Angeles County)$47,45649,200
North Valley-Northern Mountains Region (Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tehama, and Trinity Counties)$47,236910
North Coast Region (Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, and Mendocino Counties)$47,061780
Hanford-Corcoran MSA (Kings County)$46,670330
San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles MSA (San Luis Obispo County)$46,650870
Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura MSA (Ventura County)$46,6192,790
Yuba City MSA (Sutter and Yuba Counties)$46,321680
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario MSA (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties)$46,22813,410
Stockton-Lodi MSA (San Joaquin County)$46,0123,400
Visalia MSA (Tulare County)$45,5081,860
Merced MSA (Merced County)$45,292580
Modesto MSA (Stanislaus County)$45,2922,060
Chico MSA (Butte County)$45,2611,150
Redding MSA (Shasta County)$44,901910
Bakersfield-Delano MSA (Kern County)$44,8092,060
Fresno MSA (Fresno and Madera Counties)$44,0585,390

What the pay actually ranges across

The lowest-paid tenth earn under
$41,126
A quarter earn under
$47,011
Half earn under
$48,836
Three quarters earn under
$56,188
The highest-paid tenth earn over
$62,648

A median is one point. These are the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2026 figures for California, and they say how far apart the people doing this job actually are. Read them as the spread across everyone already in the work — not as a starting wage and not as a promise about where anyone lands.

Similar work

O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, names these as occupations involving work similar to this one — its own reading of the job, not a grouping by code. They keep O*NET's order, and only those California publishes a projection for are shown.

OccupationTypical pay in CaliforniaProjected openingsProjected change
Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses$81,98281,600+15%
Paramedics$76,6783,120+15.7%
Registered Nurses$144,197228,840+13.5%
Psychiatric Aides$48,7035,580+5.3%
Emergency Medical Technicians$47,67819,450+15%
Medical Assistants$50,918175,850+22.7%

Programs that train for this job — 120