Hospitals added no new jobs in 2013, although the healthcare sector as a whole grew by 204,000 jobs and makes up more than 10 percent of total employment nationwide as of February, according to a labor brief from Altarum Institute's Center for Sustainable Health Spending.
Healthcare job growth was well below the 250,000-job average from 2010 to 2012, according to the brief. Job growth isn't getting any better in 2014--hospitals lost 1,200 jobs in February and nearly 10,000 total in the past three months. Meanwhile, hospital price growth fell to 1.1 percent in January, its lowest reading since September 1998, the Center said.
February marked the third consecutive month healthcare gained fewer than 10,000 jobs, the lowest three-month gain since the organization began tracking the data in 1989. Over the past 12 months, outpatient care centers grew at the fastest rate (5.4 percent) and added 36,100 jobs, the brief states.
Researchers will wait to see if healthcare use and employment increase with the number of people newly insured under the Affordable Care Act, according to the brief.
The shift in the job market caused more nurses to look for work in rehabilitation centers, patient homes and outpatient clinics rather than hospitals, FierceHealthcare previously reported. The healthcare sector was in third place for layoffs in 2013 (after finance and industrial companies), with more than 41,000 layoffs.
To learn more:
- read the labor brief (.pdf)