The health care industry notched more than 6% of the 175,000 jobs added to the U.S. economy in May, and of those the home health care sector grabbed the majority, according to Labor Department data.
Out of the 11,000 new jobs in health care, hospitals lost about 6,000 last month while nearly 7,000 positions were created in the home health care sector.
“The most fundamental thing is that care is being moved out of the hospital…to outpatient settings,” Mark Pauly, a professor of health-care management, business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said to the Wall Street Journal. “This has been a fairly strong pattern over the last five years. Hospital employment has slowed fairly dramatically but has been more than offset by employment in the outpatient sector and in doctors’ offices.”
Cost-containment and technology are two reasons for this shift, Pauly told the WSJ, with ability growing for patients to receive care in home settings rather than hospitals or skilled nursing facilities.
“Postings on job-search websites support the trend. In May, health care was the top hiring sector at SimplyHired.com,” reports the WSJ. “During the month, the website posted 381,667 health-care jobs, up more than 25% from the tally last year.”
Read the full article at the Wall Street Journal.
Written by Alyssa Gerace
