While East Coast hospitals suffered failed backup systems and evacuations, thanks to Hurricane Sandy, national healthcare employment weathered the storm relatively unscathed, adding another 20,000 workers in November, according to data released today from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"Our analysis suggests that Hurricane Sandy did not substantively impact the national employment and unemployment estimates for November," the BLS said.
Maintaining the industry's upward trend, hospitals added 8,000 new jobs last month, while nursing care facilities grew by 5,000 positions.
Last month, hospitals added 6,200 workers, a slight dip from the more than 8,000 jobs added in September.
So far this year, the healthcare industry has seen an average monthly gain of 26,000 jobs, according to the BLS.
With such figures, it's not surprising that more than half of surveyed healthcare workers believe they can find a new job, according to a new poll from Randstad Healthcare.
Although only 23 percent of healthcare workers say they are likely to job search in the next 12 months, 55 percent are confident they could secure a new job during the next year.
"The reality is that healthcare jobs will be in high demand for many years to come, due to an aging population, healthcare reform and technological advances," Steve McMahan, executive vice president of Randstad US, Professionals, said last week in a statement.
The survey attributes any slight drops in confidence levels to recent reports about the impending fiscal cliff, which is expected to impact healthcare providers especially hard.
To learn more:
- read the BLS data
- here's the of Randstad Healthcare announcement