According to AVMA.org,

“Veterinary technicians in practice continue to struggle with low pay, compassion fatigue, and burnout as well as a lack of recognition and opportunities for career advancement, according to results from the 2016 National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America survey.

They are working 50 hours a week, working so hard to make ends meet. A third of techs in the survey had two or three jobs. We're all going to burn out at that level," said Heather Prendergast, co-leader of the Veterinary Nurse Initiative, during this year's Banfield Summit, held Sept. 10-11 in Portland, Oregon. The Veterinary Nurse Initiative seeks to unite veterinary technicians under a single title—registered veterinary nurse—and push for uniform credentialing requirements and a uniform definition of scope of practice.

Prendergast continued, "The value of credentialing is so varied among states, but when there's no pay difference between on-the-job(–trained) or credentialed techs, why go to school and get a $30,000 loan and get paid the same amount as the assistant at $15 an hour?"

According to the survey's authors, some of the challenges for technicians have contributed to technicians leaving the profession. When asked how satisfied technicians were in their position, about half (51 percent) said they are very satisfied with their career and will stay in veterinary technology. Over half (56.7 percent) had changed their place of employment within the first five years in veterinary technology.

Unionization is a way of going after the issues differently than the initiative, said Ken Yagi, co-leader of the VNI, in reference to a few hundred employees at VCA and BluePearl clinics who voted to unionize this past year (see JAVMA, Sept. 1, 2018). He asked, "Why did we have to come down this road that there are such big issues going on? How did we come to this? Why did this happen?"

Kara Burns, president of NAVTA, points to underutilization of veterinary technicians as a major issue.”

Veterinary professionals who have gone to school, or dedicated years of their life to the field are getting paid the same, if not less, than fast food employees. As this is a professional and very needed position, veterinary professionals should be getting paid more than someone who handles food.