Hospital employment had a decent showing in June, adding more than 10,000 jobs during the month, AHA News Now has reported.
Hospitals added a seasonally adjusted 10,600 jobs during the month of June compared to May 2015, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall employment at the nation's hospitals stood at 4.88 million in June, up 107,600 from a year ago. However, June's job growth was more than 25 percent less than May numbers, when 12,700 jobs were added to hospital payrolls.
Without the seasonal adjustments, hospitals added 22,100 jobs compared to May and 110,700 more over the past year.
The hospital employment numbers of late are in stark contrast to two years ago, when the sector's growth was stagnant. In 2013, hospitals created no new jobs at all. That year overall employment in the healthcare sector actually fell for the first time since 2003. The prognosis was particularly grim in states that did not expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), with many hospitals undertaking significant layoffs of staff.
The improving U.S. economy in the past couple of years and the millions of Americans who have obtained health insurance appears to have changed job prospects for both hospitals and the healthcare sector as a whole. The entire healthcare sector saw robust job growth in June, adding 40,100 jobs during the month. Ambulatory surgical centers posted the biggest gains, adding 22,600 jobs. Nursing and residential care facilities added 6,900 jobs in total. Home healthcare added 5,300 jobs. Physician offices added 2,700 jobs, and outpatient care centers added another 2,500 positions.
Between June 2014 and last month, the healthcare sector added a total of 435,500 jobs, according to the BLS data.
To learn more:
- read the AHA News Now article
- check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics data