So it’s been a while. And most of me is excited, THRILLED even to start practicing massage again!
Massage is an amazing gift to be able to share, and being around so many great folks I’ve come to think of as ‘Week-long Warriors’ – those folks who attempt to battle the sedentary desk-days with endurance activity – I feel that there are a lot who could benefit from a little help with more frequent body maintenance.
But there’s also this part of me that is stuck thinking about the market that I left, and all those reasons why I turned my practice inward and stopped treating massage as a lucrative business worth the effort to sustain for extra income.
There has been ongoing chatter on massage therapist forums about market saturation: Are there too many therapists in the US vs. massage-seekers? And if so, what is driving this? The growth in practitioners being fed promises of making outrageous amounts of $$ with the minimal amount of training? Or the average consumer not accepting the value proposition of a roughly $80/hour service for something they consider a luxury item? Are other professionals so greatly tasked with the job of convincing the public to use services in general, rather than simply promoting their own businesses?
I graduated from my massage program in 1998 when there were roughly 139,000 practitioners in the US, or ~1 therapist per 1940 people in the country. By 2004, massage school enrollments and graduations had more than doubled, and to keep up with the demand for training, we saw all sorts of vocational schools like Lincoln Tech offering massage programs next to automotive and medical technician courses. Potential students of massage could expect the shortest, cheapest, bare-bones education that likely barely met the state regulations.
Around then, one of my local-area massage specialty schools, MINE (Massage Institute of New England) had folded, and MTI (Massage Therapy Institute) moved and became subsumed as part of the Cortiva Institute brand of about a dozen schools that span from East to West Coast. I can’t comment on either of those decisions other than speculate on the influencing factors and the continued inclusion of massage in technical and other less-specialized institutes.
But, the therapist ‘explosion’ is starting to taper off. Enrollments in massage schools has declined about 15% from 2006-2008 and another 10% by 2009. Perhaps the reality of income from massage practice is starting to be more transparent. Hours working in a private practice cannot be determined by the time spent on performing massages alone, making a % on each massage out of a medical office or spa doesn’t take into account slow times or no shows, and while chains like Massage Envy pay an hourly rate that accounts for downtime, it’s debatable whether or not it’s actually equivalent to the income from working on commissions. Bottom line is that an average first-timer in private practice is likely to make about $10k in that first year and average $18k a year for non-massage newbies. Most therapists work a second job, and averages of incomes put the massage income at roughly 1/3 of their total annual take.
So, yes, this does bunch a whole lot of different situations into a murky generalization – attempting to work full or part time, expecting to supplement another job or for extra cash while in college, working in a spa vs. a health clinic, working in a city vs. suburban office, length of eduction, practicing in a state with or without a state license, density of practitioners in region, etc. We would certainly be better off to have some research that takes into consideration different segments of the therapist population. However, it does allow one to guess how likely it is that the massage therapist you saw when you had that gift certificate last year is making the same annual salary you are without any other supplemental income.
One good thing is that I’m coming back to massage at a time in which there is finally a state license in MA. Not long ago, a therapist would have had to wade through the 161 local ordinances for practicing, and if they were like me, may have filed for licenses in several towns (each with their own license fee) each year. Not only was the bureaucracy something to deal with, but it really made for an industry without real standards. Did you really want to investigate how many hours of education the therapist you saw in Boston was guaranteed to have vs. the one in Somerville? Did you even stop to think there might be a difference?
So, here I am again, 1 of now more than 293,000 massage therapists in the US. Are there too many of us… or too few of YOU, the potential massage-seeker?
So, what about You, the consumer? What is the potential client’s perception of the value of a massage? Or the value of massage as a frequent or regular part of one’s life? What if you are an athlete? Or spend most of your days sitting at a computer? …or both??
That’s the next question to ponder…. more to come…
/m
massageworthy 