Job Market Health score
64/ 100
Strong
Stable · -2
- At least 90% of required inputs and occupation-industry mapping are covered.
Job Market Health scores are derived indicators based on published data, informational only, not a forecast or guarantee.
Substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors
SOC 21-1018 · 21-0000 · Score reference month September 2026
In short
The national Job Market Health score is in the Strong band for September 2026.
$59,350Median annual wageOEWS May 2025
50,500Projected annual openingsBLS Employment Projections 2025-2035
+18.4%Projected growth2025–2035
491,930Total employmentOEWS May 2025
Latest interpretation
What stands out for substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors
The clearest signals from the latest validated score, outlook and metro data.
Occupation fundamentals is the strongest component
Occupation fundamentals scores 86/100, compared with 41/100 for current demand, a 45-point difference.
JobMarketHealth score componentsLong-term growth is projected at 10% or more
BLS projects 50,500 average annual openings and +18.4% employment growth from 2025 to 2035. Projected openings are a modeled annual average, not vacancies open today.
BLS Employment ProjectionsLargest published metro market
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA has the largest published metro employment count for substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors, at 26,960 jobs. The next-largest published metro is New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ with 26,200 jobs. This measures employment scale, not market quality.
BLS OEWSLocal market context
QCEW industry conditions for this occupation’s employment mix
Choose a state to see how the industries that employ this occupation are performing locally.
Choose a state above to explore its available industry context.
How to read this section
QCEW measures employment and wages by industry, not by occupation. We weight those industry conditions using the published industry mix for this occupation. These figures describe the industries that employ this occupation; they are not direct counts of people working in the occupation or jobs currently open.
Source: BLS QCEW. This section is not part of the national 0 to 100 Job Market Health score. See the methodology.
Compare states for substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselorsSide-by-side published industry conditions for two or three states. There is no state-level health score; the 0 to 100 score is national.
How to read this page
The score is a national composite from 0 to 100 that weights near term hiring demand at 50 percent, the occupation's own employment fundamentals at 30 percent, and long-term outlook at 20 percent. Wages and occupation profile details are context shown alongside it, not score inputs. See the full methodology.
Median annual wage and metro employment come from BLS OEWS, which is annual. Projected annual openings and projected growth come from BLS Employment Projections and describe the published projection horizon, so they are not a count of jobs open today. Values shown as not published are suppressed by the source rather than filled in here.
Job Market Health trend
Published composite score · 0–100 · by reference month
Latest published values
- Sep 2664 / 100
View values: Job Market Health history
| Reference month | Score / 100 |
|---|---|
| Jan 25 | 80 |
| Feb 25 | 79 |
| Mar 25 | 78 |
| Apr 25 | 77 |
| May 25 | 78 |
| Jun 25 | 77 |
| Jul 25 | 75 |
| Aug 25 | 73 |
| Sep 25 | 73 |
| Oct 25 | 69 |
| Nov 25 | 69 |
| Dec 25 | 66 |
| Jan 26 | 70 |
| Feb 26 | 66 |
| Mar 26 | 67 |
| Apr 26 | 66 |
| May 26 | 68 |
| Jun 26 | 68 |
| Jul 26 | 67 |
| Aug 26 | 66 |
| Sep 26 | 64 |
Score components
The three published inputs behind the composite · each 0–100
Largest metro markets by employment
OEWS employment count, where the jobs are, not a quality ranking
OEWS May 2025. These occupation counts describe the survey reference period.
Linked metro names open overall job-market profiles.
| Metro area | Employment | Jobs per 1,000 | Median annual wage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 26,960 | 4.30 | $51,910 |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 26,200 | 2.76 | $61,020 |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 15,580 | 3.45 | $61,600 |
| Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 14,920 | 5.15 | $58,140 |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 11,150 | 4.12 | $62,130 |
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 10,240 | 3.63 | $57,290 |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 9,520 | 4.01 | $68,400 |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 9,030 | 2.88 | $65,270 |
| Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO | 8,480 | 5.27 | $62,810 |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | 7,950 | 3.35 | $66,020 |
Education & training
Typical entry requirements · BLS Employment Projections 2025-2035
Top skills
Occupation profile · O*NET 31.0 Database
O*NET skills are not available in this published occupation profile. Other figures on this page use their separately listed sources.
Sources and methodology
The datasets behind the figures on this page
Values marked “Not published” are suppressed or not published by the source. We leave them blank rather than estimating them. Pipeline status for every source is on Data Status.
Evidence record
JobMarketHealth derived indicator; not a government statistic. The composite score is national and occupation level.
- Occupation
- Substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors
- SOC code
- 21-1018
- Geography
- United States
- Reference month
- September 2026
- Published Job Market Health score
- 64 / 100
- Restated score
- 64 / 100
- Band
- Strong
- Current Demand component
- 41 / 10050% weight
- Occupation Fundamentals component
- 86 / 10030% weight
- Long-Term Outlook component
- 86 / 10020% weight
- Confidence
- HighAt least 90% of required inputs and occupation-industry mapping are covered.
- Methodology version
- v1.0
- Source vintage: Annual
- EP-2025-2035|CPS-25b-2025|OEWS-2020-2025
- Source vintage: Monthly calculated at
- 2026-11-03T20:58:12.785Z
- First published at
- Nov 3, 2026
- Recalculated at
- Nov 3, 2026
- Canonical record URL
- https://jobmarkethealth.com/occupations/substance-abuse-behavioral-disorder-and-mental-health-counselors#evidence-record
- Derived by
- JobMarketHealth
MethodologyBLS JOLTSBLS CESBLS Employment ProjectionsHow to citeNational Job Market Health release, August 2026
Keep going
Learn how to judge a market from these numbers in how to tell if a job market is healthy, or why projected growth and annual openings often disagree in projected growth vs projected annual openings. Coverage, revisions and limits are explained on about the data.
The datasets behind these figures, and what each one can and cannot show, are set out on data sources.