Dive Brief:

• Healthcare executives kept hiring to a minimum while they waited for the fallout from the ACA to become clear, but jobs in the sector have picked up steam over the last year, according to recent figures from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Altarum Health Institute's Center for Sustainable Health Spending.
• Hospitals added 28,500 new jobs since last year, with an additional 4,300 in November alone, adjusted for the season. Without the adjustment, the stats climb to 32,000 new jobs since 2013. Meanwhile, the entire healthcare sector averaged 28,900 new jobs each month since last November, amounting to more than 261,000 hirings over the last 12 months. Physician's offices did the best, adding 6,600 jobs between October and November, with home healthcare charting 5,000 jobs. The only group not making gains was nursing care facilities, which cut 1,300 jobs over October and November, and 700 positions since this time last year.
• The Altarum Institute hasn't released their full analysis yet, but its October report was reasonably upbeat, showing an addition of 24,500 new healthcare jobs in that month alone.

Dive Insight:

With positive hiring news in hand, the healthcare industry is collectively releasing a sigh of relief.

Hoping for the best but planning for the worst has kept the healthcare job market fairly moribund for the last couple of years leading up to the effective date of the Affordable Care Act. But, as open enrollment proceeds for 2014, it's becoming clear: The sky didn't fall, the industry didn't collapse and the insurance companies did not end up singing for the choir invisible.

Things have changed since the ACA was signed, and some of those changes—like the ongoing drop-off in reimbursements to hospitals—are still ironing themselves out. In particular, healthcare providers still face big challenges collecting from patients with high deductibles. That being said, the industry is beginning to realize that change is not always a bad thing, and health execs are exploring new ways to overcome some of those changes every day. 

The mini-boom in hiring will likely last into 2015, and then settle back down as the industry continues to adjust to the new normal of the ACA.