Time Machine

Recreation supervisors

Name: First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services: employment and wages since 1923
Creator: Future History
License: https://futurehistory.earth/terms

Official title First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services (SOC 39-1014)

Also called Entertainment supervisor, Recreation coordinator, Salon manager, Community life director, Aquatics supervisor

In brief

In May 2025, BLS counted 103,190 US recreation supervisors, with median pay of $48,560 a year. Of the BLS counts since 2021, the May 2025 count is the highest. The earliest figure here is an estimate of 12,000 from 1923, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for recreation supervisors: Online registration platforms, 2005 to 2018. Online registration and automated scheduling reduced the administrative overhead of the supervisor role substantially, freeing time for direct participant-facing supervision and coaching.

What the sources say

Official outlook

BLS projects employment to grow 5.3% from 2025 to 2035.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

AI exposure studies

34.2% of this job's tasks are exposed to large language models. Not a forecast of job losses. Eloundou and others, 2023

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend.

Last updated 11 October 2026.

Cite this page

APA

Future History. (2026, October 11). Recreation supervisors: jobs and pay since 1923 [Data set; data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35]. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/39-1014

Chicago

Future History. "Recreation supervisors: jobs and pay since 1923." Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. Last modified October 11, 2026. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/39-1014.

BibTeX

@misc{futurehistory_39_1014, author = {{Future History}}, title = {Recreation supervisors: jobs and pay since 1923}, year = {2026}, month = oct, howpublished = {\url{https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/39-1014}}, note = {Last updated 2026-10-11. Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35}, }

The access date is today's date on your device.

drag to travel through time

19001925195019752000now

2026

Known then as Playground Matron / Play Leader (Boston Sand Gardens era)

Known then as Playground Supervisor / Recreation Leader (Playground Association of America era)

Known then as Recreation Director / Recreation Supervisor (National Recreation Association era)

Known then as Recreation Supervisor / Parks and Recreation Director (NRPA era, municipal expansion)

Known then as Recreation Supervisor / Entertainment Supervisor / Facility Manager (BLS 39-1021 combined era)

Known then as First-Line Supervisor of Personal Service Workers (2010 SOC, combined code 39-1021)

Known then as First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services (BLS SOC 39-1014)

Known today as First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services (BLS SOC 39-1014)

Projected to still be called First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services (BLS SOC 39-1014)

Data from the May 2025 survey

US Employment

103K

Est.

Stated in source: BLS OEWS

Official statistic

Report an error

Median Annual Wage

$48,560

Est.

≈ $47,315 in 2024 prices (derived by us, CPI-adjusted)

Official statistic

Report an error

Beat · 1886

The Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association installs sand gardens in the yards of the Children's Mission in Boston's North End, assigning a matron to supervise children's play. By 1889, Boston has 21 supervised playgrounds. This is the founding moment of paid recreation supervision as a distinct occupation in the United States: an adult worker whose job is specifically to organize, monitor, and guide recreational activity.

Beat · 1906

On April 12, 1906, eighteen reformers gather at a YMCA in Washington D.C. to found the Playground Association of America. Luther Gulick (physical educator, co-developer of basketball rules) is elected first president. The PAA immediately begins lobbying for municipal funding of supervised playgrounds and develops training programs for play leaders. Within four years, 55 US cities have playground programs; within 17 years, 680 cities do. The PAA's 1909 "Normal Course in Play" -- covering child psychology, playground management, gymnastics, folk dancing, storytelling, and nature study -- is adopted by 113 colleges and universities by 1910.

Beat · 1933

President Roosevelt signs the Emergency Conservation Work Act on March 31, 1933, creating the Civilian Conservation Corps. At its 1935 peak, the CCC employs approximately 500,000 young men across 2,600 camps. Each camp requires civilian technical supervisors for program and project work. Separately, the Works Progress Administration, Federal Emergency Relief Administration, and Civil Works Administration collectively spend nearly $1.5 billion on parks, pools, camps, and trails, employing recreation supervisors in what the National Recreation Association later described as "record numbers." The New Deal is the largest single expansion of paid recreation supervision in American history.

Beat · 1955

Disneyland opens on July 17, 1955 in Anaheim, California, creating the modern theme park industry and, with it, a new category of entertainment supervisor: the person responsible for managing "cast members" (Walt Disney's term for park workers) who perform character roles, operate attractions, and manage queue areas. Disneyland's operational model -- scripted guest interactions, uniform appearance standards, systematic safety protocols, and performance monitoring for front-line entertainment workers -- established the private-sector template for entertainment supervision that spread throughout the amusement industry in the following decades.

Beat · 1965

On August 14, 1965, five professional organizations merge to form the National Recreation and Park Association: the National Recreation Association (founded 1906), the American Institute of Park Executives, the American Recreation Society, the National Conference on State Parks, and the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums. The NRPA merger reflects a recognition that municipal recreation, parks management, and entertainment/zoo operations shared a common supervisory skill base and professional identity. The NRPA's Certified Park and Recreation Professional (CPRP) credential, formalized in later years, becomes the principal professional certification for recreation supervisors.

Beat · 2018

The 2018 SOC revision splits the old code 39-1021 (First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers) into two new codes: 39-1014 (First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services) and 39-1022 (First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers, covering barber, salon, and spa supervisors). The split reflects BLS recognition that entertainment and recreation supervision had become a sufficiently distinct occupational cluster to warrant its own tracking code -- a validation of the profession's scale and coherence after more than a century of development.

Beat · 2020

COVID-19 shutdowns close virtually every non-essential recreation facility in the United States between March and June 2020: fitness clubs, pools, parks event programs, sports leagues, amusement parks, theaters, and recreation centers. The BLS records a sharp employment decline in arts, entertainment, and recreation occupations. Recreation supervisors either move to remote administrative functions, are furloughed, or pivot to outdoor and distanced-format programming. The recovery from 2021 onward drives strong hiring in the sector; by 2024 the occupation has not only recovered but exceeded pre-COVID employment levels, aided by pent-up demand for in-person recreation and a measurable post-pandemic shift in consumer spending toward experiences over goods.

How to read this number

OEWS is a point-in-time survey snapshot, not a continuous time series; BLS advises against using it for year-over-year trend comparison.

Each dot is a cited figure over time; the dotted line only links them (values between aren't measured). Hollow dots are estimates.

Official statistic: Copied by a script from a statistics agency table or a published study's table, not retyped by hand. BLS figures and the forecast and exposure tables are also re-checked against that table on every data run. Researched context: Researched from the cited source rather than copied from it by a script, so it is not machine-checked yet. Spot a mistake? Each figure has a “Report an error” link.

How it began · 1886

The paid recreation supervisor was born on a Boston sandpile. In 1885 and 1886, the Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association placed large sandboxes in the yards of the Children's Mission on Parmenter Street in Boston's crowded North End, assigning a matron to oversee the children who gathered to play. Those matrons -- women paid specifically to supervise organized outdoor recreation -- are the direct ancestors of the modern first-line supervisor of recreation workers. The idea spread quickly: by 1889, Boston had 21 supervised playgrounds, and the Charlesbank open-air gymnasium on the Charles River had opened dedicated sections for men, women, and children. The social urgency behind these posts was real: industrial cities of the 1880s had virtually no safe play space for working-class children, and the street was genuinely dangerous. Reformers like Joseph Lee and Henry S. Curtis argued that unsupervised streets produced delinquency; a trained adult leader who could run games, teach physical skills, and model civic behavior was the solution. By 1906, when Luther Gulick, the Brooklyn-born physical educator who had co-developed basketball rules with James Naismith, gathered eighteen reformers at a YMCA in Washington D.C. to found the Playground Association of America, the role already had recognizable professional contours: the play leader selected activities, trained junior workers, maintained equipment, filed reports with municipal authorities, and served as the human face of public recreation. The PAA immediately launched a training curriculum called "A Normal Course in Play," adopted by 113 colleges and universities by 1910. By 1923, more than 12,000 trained recreation workers were employed nationally, and 680 cities had community recreation programs with paid supervisory leadership. The New Deal then transformed a modest profession into a large one: federal emergency programs in the 1930s spent nearly $1.5 billion on parks, pools, camps, and trails, employing recreation supervisors in record numbers and permanently embedding the role in municipal government. The occupation never looked back.

Cited forecasts · present → 2035

Will AI replace recreation supervisors? What the research says

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, we show the disagreement rather than an average.

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, the spread is the honest signal.

What published forecasts say

Forecast change in the number of people doing this work, as published by each named source. Bars share one scale on every role, centred on zero and reaching the end at ±30%. Grey marks a small change, 3% or less either way.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

→ 2035

+5.3%

BLS National Employment Matrix, 2025-35 cycle, line for SOC 39-1014 (First-line supervisors of entertainment and recreation workers, except gambling services): 109.3 thousand jobs in 2025, projected 115.1 thousand in 2035, a change of +5.8 thousand (+5.3%). Matrix employment counts all jobs in the occupation, including self-employed workers (3.1% of this occupation in 2025). The average for all occupations in this cycle is +3.5%.

Official statisticReport an error

How exposed is this work to AI (research measures)

Scores as published by each study. Each row says what it measures. These measure what AI could technically do, not forecasts of jobs lost.

Eloundou et al. (2023), "GPTs are GPTs"

2023 study · Share of tasks exposed to LLMs (β, human-rated)

34.2%

of tasks

What this measures

Published occupation-level exposure from the paper's occ_level.csv for O*NET-SOC 39-1014.00 First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services. Shown: human-rated β = 0.342, the share of the occupation's tasks an LLM could do in at least half the time at equal quality, counting tasks that need LLM-powered software at half weight (β = E1 + 0.5 × E2). Other published measures for this occupation: human-rated α (LLM alone) 0.263 and γ (all LLM-assisted) 0.421; GPT-4-rated β 0.368. This measures how much of the work an LLM could touch, not how many jobs disappear.

Official statisticReport an error

Today, in this role

What's changing day to day for recreation supervisors

Three parts of your work where AI is already doing real lifting, and what stays yours.

AI is taking this onCompile and submit operational reports on attendance, revenue, payroll hours, and incident records, drawing data from the scheduling platform and registration system rather than manual tallies.

Compile and submit operational reports on attendance, revenue, payroll hours, and incident records, drawing data from the scheduling platform and registration system rather than manual tallies.^[5],[1]

Tools picking this up

Homebase AI Scheduling Assistant ↗ACTIVE Network (ActiveNet) ↗

Where your edge is

Shift time from data assembly to data interpretation: use the automated report as the starting point for a concise management briefing that explains the "why" behind the numbers.

AI is sitting alongside you hereBuild and publish weekly staff schedules for hourly recreation workers using AI-assisted scheduling tools that factor in availability, labor-cost targets, and peak-attendance forecasts drawn from historical booking data.

Build and publish weekly staff schedules for hourly recreation workers using AI-assisted scheduling tools that factor in availability, labor-cost targets, and peak-attendance forecasts drawn from historical booking data.^[5],[6]

Tools picking this up

Homebase AI Scheduling Assistant ↗Deputy AI ↗

Where your edge is

Focus on exception handling: override AI suggestions when local events, permit conflicts, or staff performance issues require judgment the tool cannot see.

AI is sitting alongside you hereCoordinate facility reservations, permit requests, and equipment allocations across programs, using the recreation management platform to check real-time availability and process bookings without phone-tag loops.

Coordinate facility reservations, permit requests, and equipment allocations across programs, using the recreation management platform to check real-time availability and process bookings without phone-tag loops.^[7],[8]

Tools picking this up

ACTIVE Network (ActiveNet) ↗

Where your edge is

Handle high-stakes or politically sensitive permit conflicts (league scheduling disputes, special events, VIP bookings) personally; the software tracks availability but the supervisor negotiates the outcome.

Where recreation supervisors go next

Natural next steps for someone with your foundation: not exits, evolutions.

General and Operations Managers
US median pay
$105,770 (May 2025)
BLS outlook 2025-35
+5%
Lodging Managers
US median pay
$69,250 (May 2025)
BLS outlook 2025-35
+3.8%
Meeting, Convention, and Event Planners
US median pay
$61,160 (May 2025)
BLS outlook 2025-35
+5.8%

What each move takes

A direction you could grow

General and Operations Managers

General and Operations Managers oversee the full operational function of a business unit, a natural ceiling role for experienced recreation supervisors who have managed multi-program departments and demonstrated P&L awareness. The jump requires financial management and strategic planning skills.

What you'd add

· Financial statement literacy and budget ownership
· Strategic planning and cross-functional stakeholder management
· People analytics and workforce planning at the organization level

What it takesA real upskill, but a natural one

Tools of the era

How has the work of recreation supervisors changed since 1886?

The tools that defined the work, one line per era. Select an era to see how it reshaped the work.

Whistle, ledger, and physical demonstration (pre-bureaucratic recreation era)
The first paid recreation supervisors worked with essentially no tools beyond a whistle for crowd management, a written ledger to record attendance and incident reports for municipal authorities, and physical demonstration as the primary teaching method. Playground leaders personally demonstrated games, exercises, and apparatus use; their authority rested on physical presence and personal example, not documentation systems. The PAA's 1909 "Normal Course in Play" curriculum formalized this model, specifying that a recreation leader needed skills in gymnastics, folk dancing, storytelling, nature study, and community singing. The work was entirely present-tense: there were no shift-scheduling tools, no registration systems, no performance management software.
Typewriter, telephone, and municipal reporting forms (bureaucratic professionalization era)
The New Deal expansion of public recreation programs brought with it the forms, reports, and administrative structures of mid-century municipal government. Recreation supervisors filed weekly activity reports, submitted budget requests on standardized forms, coordinated scheduling by telephone with other departments, and maintained typed records of incidents, equipment inventories, and staff rosters. The typewriter transformed the record-keeping function from an afterthought to a core responsibility. By the 1950s, a parks and recreation department supervisor was expected to be literate in municipal paperwork as well as competent on the playing field.
Mimeograph, intercom systems, and early scheduling whiteboards (municipal recreation infrastructure era)
Post-WWII suburban growth produced thousands of new recreation centers, aquatic facilities, and multipurpose gyms, each requiring a supervisor to coordinate staff shifts, manage facilities, and communicate programming to the public. Mimeographed program schedules, bulletin boards, intercom systems, and large scheduling whiteboards became the standard operations toolkit. Recreation supervisors in this era also began working with safety and liability documentation frameworks as municipalities became more attuned to legal exposure from recreational injuries. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 introduced formal workplace safety inspection requirements that recreation supervisors had to incorporate into their routines.
Desktop PC, spreadsheet scheduling, and early recreation management software (digitization era)
Personal computers arrived in municipal parks offices and private recreation facilities during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Recreation supervisors shifted from handwritten scheduling and ledger-based attendance to spreadsheet tools like Lotus 1-2-3 and later Microsoft Excel. Specialized recreation management software -- platforms like CLASS, Vermont Systems RecTrac, and early versions of ACTIVE Network -- began handling program registration, facility reservations, and membership tracking, dramatically reducing the manual phone-tag and paper-ledger burden that had occupied much of a supervisor's administrative time. These systems also enabled supervisors to analyze attendance patterns and optimize program offerings in ways that were not practical with paper records.
Online registration platforms, mobile scheduling apps, and digital inspection tools (web-connected era)
Web-based program registration transformed the supervisor's relationship with the public: participants registered online, received automated confirmations, and paid by credit card, eliminating the paper-based intake process that had previously consumed significant supervisory time. Mobile scheduling applications (Deputy, Homebase, When I Work) allowed supervisors to build and publish staff schedules from a phone, with workers receiving shift notifications by text rather than a posted paper schedule. SafetyCulture's iAuditor and similar mobile inspection apps replaced paper checklists for facility and equipment audits, creating digital records that could be accessed remotely and shared with management instantly. The supervisory role shifted from administrator-of-paperwork to manager-of-digital-systems.
Effect on the work
Online registration and automated scheduling reduced the administrative overhead of the supervisor role substantially, freeing time for direct participant-facing supervision and coaching. The labor productivity effect was positive: a supervisor could manage larger teams and more complex programming without proportional increases in administrative staff.
AI-assisted scheduling, feedback analytics, and predictive attendance tools (AI augmentation era)
AI-powered scheduling tools (Homebase AI Scheduling, Deputy Smart Scheduling, launched 2023-2025) brought demand-aware shift optimization to the role: the system analyzes historical attendance data, event calendars, and labor cost targets to suggest staffing levels, with the supervisor reviewing and approving rather than building schedules from scratch. Participant feedback platforms (Medallia, Zonka Feedback) use natural language processing to aggregate survey responses and surface actionable patterns across hundreds of post-session comments, replacing manual tally sheets. The supervisory core tasks -- direct performance observation, real-time safety judgment, conflict resolution, and staff coaching -- remain distinctively human work that the tools support but cannot replace. The BLS's "Bright Outlook" designation for this occupation as of 2024 reflects that AI augmentation is expanding the value of the role rather than substituting for it.

Part of Personal Care · see all 14 roles →

Different role?

See the same long-arc view for your own profession.

Browse the directory by industry, or search by title or SOC code.

Browse all roles

First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services employment and pay by year

On record since1886

Latest US employment103,190 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error

Latest US median pay$48,560 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error

Outlook+5.3% by 2035Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35Official statisticReport an error

View all 9 years of cited US data, each linked to its source

Year	US employment	Annual pay (median unless marked)	Source	Report
1923	12,000	$1,200	Est., Social Welfare History Project (employment) Researched contextEst., infed.org (pay) Researched context	Report
1935	6,000	n/a	Est., National Archives Researched context	Report
1965	40,000	n/a	Est., Wikipedia Researched context	Report
2000	85,000	$27,000	Est., O*NET 39-1014.00 Researched context	Report
2021	66,860	$44,870	BLS OEWS May 2021 Official statistic	Report
2022	79,060	$44,660	BLS OEWS May 2022 Official statistic	Report
2023	88,140	$46,060	BLS OEWS May 2023 Official statistic	Report
2024	92,830	$46,900	BLS OEWS May 2024 Official statistic	Report
2025	103,190	$48,560	BLS OEWS May 2025 Official statistic	Report

Embed this timeline on your site

Free for any site. Paste this where the timeline should appear; it stays interactive, every datapoint stays cited, and it sets no cookies on your page. How embedding works

<iframe src="https://futurehistory.earth/embed/39-1014"
  width="100%" height="430" style="border:0"
  title="First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services, a Future History timeline"
  loading="lazy"></iframe>
<p style="font-size:13px;margin:4px 0 0"><a href="https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/39-1014">First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services: jobs and pay over time</a>, from Future History</p>

See all roles in Personal Care

Where recreation supervisors go next

General and Operations Managers

Whistle, ledger, and physical demonstration (pre-bureaucratic recreation era)Whistle1886–1930

Typewriter, telephone, and municipal reporting forms (bureaucratic professionalization era)Typewriter1930–1965

Mimeograph, intercom systems, and early scheduling whiteboards (municipal recreation infrastructure era)Mimeograph1965–1990

Desktop PC, spreadsheet scheduling, and early recreation management software (digitization era)Desktop PC1990–2005

Online registration platforms, mobile scheduling apps, and digital inspection tools (web-connected era)Online registration platforms2005–2018

AI-assisted scheduling, feedback analytics, and predictive attendance tools (AI augmentation era)AI-assisted scheduling2018–present

First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services employment and pay by year

More in Personal Care