While employment grew in many areas of healthcare in September, overall industry job growth remains below the average monthly gain over the previous 12 months.
The finding is from the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, published Oct. 4.
Here are seven things to know from that report and other recently released BLS data that illustrate healthcare job trends.
- Healthcare added 45,200 jobs in September, below the average monthly gain of 57,000 over the previous 12 months.
- Employment continued to trend up in ambulatory healthcare services and hospitals, adding 24,300 and 11,500 jobs, respectively.
- In physician offices and home healthcare services, 1,900 and 12,700 jobs were added, respectively.
- Employment also trended up in nursing and residential care facilities, with 9,400 jobs added.
- As of August, job openings in the healthcare and social assistance sector were up 29% over pre-pandemic levels (February 2020). This is down from 90% at their peak in March 2022.
- The rate of hires (number of hires during a month, expressed as a percentage of the total employment in that period) also slowed in healthcare and social assistance in August (3.1), from 3.3 in July and 3.8 in August 2023.
- In August, layoffs and discharges decreased in healthcare and social assistance (52,000) compared to the previous month.