http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2017/03/17/whats-behind-2-5-million-new-health-jobs/

December 2007 marked the start of the most severe recession in modern times. For more than two years, the economy shed jobs. By the start of 2010, there were 8.6 million fewer jobs than at the start of the recession. These losses would have been greater had health care employment not continued to grow; jobs outside health care fell by 9.2 million while health care added nearly 600 thousand jobs. It took until November 2014 for non-health jobs to return to their pre-recession level, at which point health jobs had grown by 1.7 million. As of January 2017, there are 2.5 million more health jobs than at the start of the recession, an increase of 19 percent over a 9-year period during which the U.S. population grew by only 7 percent. While health jobs make up about 11 percent of total jobs, they have accounted for 35 percent of the jobs added since the start of the recession.

The remarkable performance of the health sector in continuing to create jobs through the recession and recovery has garnered much attention over the past few years. On the positive side, it has been credited with cushioning the impact of the recession, not only for those fortunate enough to land the new health jobs, but also for those whose non-health jobs were preserved by a health job “multiplier effect,” as health workers spent their income on other goods and services. On the other hand, it has been argued that this health job growth should not be celebrated because it has been wasteful, producing little in the way of improved health outcomes. According to this line of thought, we would have been better off curbing health job growth and investing the saved resources in other areas such as education, infrastructure, food, shelter, and retirement savings. A nice recent summary of these issues can be found here. This post informs continued assessment of the growth in health jobs by looking more closely at the nature of the 2.5 million health jobs added since the start of the recession.

http://altarum.org/about/news-and-events/health-care-job-growth-off-to-slowest-start-in-two-years-health-care-prices-rise-at-highest-rate-in

The health care sector added 27,000 jobs in February 2017 on the heels of a downwardly revised 12,000 jobs in January, resulting in a two-month average of less than 20,000 new jobs per month – well below the 2015 and 2016 pace of growth.

Health care jobs accounted for only 8% of total job growth during the first two months of 2017, less than half of the 17% share in 2016. As a result, the sector’s share of total jobs dropped to 10.72%, fractionally below the all-time high rate of 10.73% in December 2016.

“In December 2007, just prior to the recession, health jobs accounted for 9.5% of total employment,” said Dr. Charles Roehrig, founding director of Altarum’s Center for Sustainable Health Spending. “Since then, the health sector has added 2.5 million jobs and grown to 10.7% of total employment. As we enter 2017, conditions seem ripe for a more cautious stance in health sector hiring as the leveling off in expanded coverage is accompanied by the possibility of contracted coverage under the proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act. Thus far, this expected slowdown is supported in the jobs data.”

For more analysis on health sector job growth during the past decade, see Altarum’s Health Affairs Blog post: “What’s Behind 2.5 Million New Health Jobs?”, which is released today.

Health care prices in January 2017 grew 2.1% above the January 2016 level, the fifth consecutive month at this rate. The 12-month moving average, at 1.8% growth, is the highest since May 2013.

Overall, at an annualized rate of $3.47 trillion, national health spending in January 2017 was 5.7% higher than in January 2016. With revised source data, we estimate that national health spending grew 5.2% in 2016, which is above the 4.8% rate projected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

The complete results are included in Altarum’s Health Sector Economic Indicators^SM briefs (http://www.altarum.org/healthindicators).