At $71,261, the 2014 median dental hygienist salary in Minnesota was close to the 2013 national average. Median salaries were generally lower in the state’s metropolitan regions, although the median salary in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area was above the state’s average:
- Duluth-Superior $65,749
- Fargo-Moorhead $65,749
- Grand Forks $63,211
- La Crosse $59,842
- Mankato-North Mankato $68,723
- Minneapolis-St. Paul $72,842
- Rochester $68,827
- Saint Cloud $71,261
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Minnesota Dental Hygienist Employment Levels
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) projects that the number of dental hygienist positions will increase by 11.5% in the period between 2012 and 2022.
Most of Minnesota’s dental hygienists are located in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. In 2013, 67.8% of the state’s 4,530 dental hygiene professionals were employed in this metropolitan area. The Minneapolis-St. Paul area had the fifth highest dental hygienist employment level of any metropolitan area in the country that year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Employment levels in the other Minnesota metropolitan areas were much lower. The area with the second largest number of dental hygienists was the Duluth-Superior area with 270 professionals. Two hundred and twenty dental hygienists practiced in the Fargo-Moorhead area.
The rate of projected job growth will be particularly high in the central Minnesota planning region. The DEED projects a 30.3% increase in the number of jobs in this region. The greatest number of available dental hygienist jobs is expected to be in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Projections suggest that there will be 1,150 total dental hygienist job openings during the ten-year period ending in 2022.
The US Department of Labor provides a detailed breakdown of 2013 Minnesota dental hygienist salary percentiles by location: