Hospitals continue job growth, add 15,000 positions in June

The hospital and healthcare hiring juggernaut continued into last month, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Hospitals added 15,000 jobs in the month of June. Between June of this year and June of 2015, hospitals have added a total of 192,700 jobs. They now employ more than 5.08 million. The hospital sector has totally reversed its fortunes from just three years ago, when no new jobs were created at all.

But hospitals were not the biggest source of new healthcare hires in June. Ambulatory surgical centers added 19,300 jobs and a total of 249,600 over the past year. For June, the healthcare sector has added 38,500 in total. Altogether, employment reached 19.15 million and 587,000 over the past year.

The ongoing numbers are encouraging. Last November, the healthcare sector created 23,800 jobs, itself a healthy number, but about 40 percent lower than the number of jobs created last month. In February, hospitals added 10,600 jobs, about 30 percent lower than last month's figures.

Among other areas of healthcare delivery during the month of June, physician offices added 6,600 jobs and offices of other healthcare practitioners added 4,200 jobs. Home healthcare added 4,400 jobs and nursing care facilities added 4,200 positions. Outpatient care centers added 2,900 jobs.

Moreover, healthcare hiring has been credited with helping shore up the beleaguered American middle class. Large numbers of those jobs pay middle-class wages, although home healthcare workers have been agitating in recent years for union representation, higher pay and benefits.

– read the Bureau of Labor Statistics data