Fixation on Histology

ASCP has recently published the results from their 2019 wage survey, the biannual evaluation of salaries for the laboratory professions. The report compares salaries for various job titles and certifications, including HTs and HTLs. While average hourly wages for those with HT certifications have slightly increased across all positions, HTL’s remain relatively static, with some positions seeing decline.

The average hourly wage for someone with an HT certification is $28.83. This is up from 2017’s $26.96. A similar raise can be seen in lead techs with HT’s from 2017 ($28.76) to 2019, ($31.59), as well as supervisors $31.45 to $33.78.

HTLs however, only saw a very slight raise between 2017’s average hourly wage of $29.12 and 2019’s $29.30. Staff level HTL’s have enjoyed a raise from $27.1 to $28.17, as have lead HTL’s from $29.62 to 31.61, however HTL supervisors have actually seen a decline from $34.04 in 2017 to 2019’s $33.39, resulting in overall average for HTL’s remaining relatively static.

This decline in supervisor HTL wages, and a $2.33 increase for HT supervisors, has actually put HTL supervisors at a lower hourly rate than their HT supervisor counterparts, $33.39 compared to $33.78.



The survey also compared HT and HTL pay by type of institution, though some for HTL were not analyzed due to small sample size. For both HT and HTLs, academic hospitals with 300-499 beds were the highest paying institution.



The study also compared average age by position and certification.

• The average age for an HT was 43.86 while an HTL was 41.34

• The average age for a staff level HT was 42.52 while an HTL was 39.12

• The average age of a staff HT went up since 2017 (from 41.09 to 42.52) while HTL remained relatively consistent (39.41 to 39.12).

• The biggest change was between HTL managers from an average age of 49 in 2017 to 43.4 in 2019.
  
  

You can find the full survey results here, and compare to previous years’ studies on the NSH website here.