A new forecast from CareerBuilder says that the healthcare sector is one of the biggest drivers of new jobs in the U.S. economy.
According to the report, 44 percent of companies in the healthcare sector with 50 employees or more are expected to add permanent jobs during the second quarter of 2016. That's far higher than the nationwide average of 34 percent of larger employers.
"Overall, U.S. job growth has been consistent despite volatility in the stock market and weaker performances in global economies," CareerBuilder Chief Executive Officer Matt Ferguson said in a statement. "The vast majority of companies are either maintaining their headcount or adding new employees at various skill levels."
Hospitals have been a huge contributor of jobs to the U.S. economy in recent years. Although they already employed 5 million nationwide, they added 188,000 workers to their ranks between January 2015 and January of this year. That's a dramatic turnaround from 2013, when they failed to add any new jobs.
Although nurses and doctors are always in high demand, one specific area of growth has been non-clinical jobs, such as as patient representatives, community health workers and medical records technicians. Such jobs comprise about 42 percent of the U.S. healthcare workforce.
Healthcare jobs are increasingly seen as a foothold into the American middle class, although many lower-skilled healthcare workers are still struggling to obtain that kind of pay.
To learn more:
- read the CareerBuilder forecast (.pdf)
- check out the CareerBuilder statement