Overall Healthcare, Hospital Employment Numbers Up in April

In April, healthcare employment showed a steady growth pattern with an increase of 20,000 jobs since March—including a gain of about 6,100 jobs among hospitals, according to the monthly figures released Friday by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Overall, in the past year the healthcare area has grown by more than 244,000 jobs, to 13.7 million.

Among hospitals, the largest healthcare employer, more than 43,000 jobs have been created since April 2009, according to the BLS seasonally adjusted figures. Current employment in the hospital area is now more than 4.7 million.

The only healthcare area reviewed by BLS seeing a decline in April was employment in physicians' offices—down by 300 jobs since March. However, physicians' offices have added more than 45,000 jobs since last year, for a total of 2.3 million jobs.

Overall, ambulatory care services saw an increase of 9,400 jobs from March. This includes home healthcare services, which showed a healthy increase of 6,400 jobs from the previous month, while outpatient care centers rose by 1,700 jobs.

Jobs in nursing and residential care facilities grew by 4,600 from the previous month, for a total of 3.1 million jobs nationwide. Of that amount, 2,300 more jobs were added from March for nursing care facilities.