Dive Brief:
- A total of 30,000 healthcare jobs were added to the U.S. labor rolls in July, representing 18% of all new jobs added during the month, according to the Department of Labor.
- Virtually all of the healthcare job growth occurred in ambulatory care — that segment accounted for 29,000 new jobs alone.
- The weak spot was in hospital job growth, which was down by 2,000 jobs from the month before.
Dive Insight:
Hospitals are often the biggest employers in many towns and medium-sized cities, but their job creation has been uneven at best in recent months. According to an analyst note from Jefferies, employment by hospitals dropped by 2,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis, although that grew to a net 1,000 new jobs on an unadjusted basis.
By comparison, hospitals added a seasonally adjusted 9,000 new jobs in June, 25,000 on an unadjusted basis. However, much of that boost was created by the minting of new residents who just graduated from medical schools.
Hospital employment is still growing at a 1.8% annual clip (compared to 1.4% as of July 2018), although that's down from the 2.1% rate reported in April.
"Overall, healthcare employment growth continues to demonstrate strong momentum, but hospital jobs growth appears to be moderating," the analysts said. Inpatient providers account for more than 5.2 million jobs nationwide.
However, Jefferies' analysts believe that healthcare will continue to be a big job engine for the foreseeable future.
"We believe the supply of clinical labor continues to struggle to keep pace with solid demand growth, resulting in tight clinician labor markets and strong demand for healthcare temp staffing services," they said.
Although healthcare job growth has been extremely robust, wages have been stagnant in recent years, a phenomenon attributed in part to continued consolidation among industry players.
The ambulatory care segment has been growing rapidly in recent years. Its addition of 29,000 new jobs was up from 17,000 in June, and significantly outpaced the year-to-date average monthly growth of 22,000.
Home healthcare services added 11,000 new jobs last month alone — the highest rate since 2017. The segment's annual growth rate is currently 5.3%, up from 3.2% in July 2018.
The nursing home segment added another 1,000 jobs.