Healthcare Job Growth Shows Movement

Despite widespread and well-publicized layoffs, the nation's hospitals reported 5,100 payroll additions in October, and 31,600 payroll additions so far this year. The rate of hospital job creation far exceeds the 19,900 hospital jobs created in the first 10 months of 2009, but is still well off the pace of hospital job growth for most of the decade, data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.

After erratic hospital job growth in the first seven months of the year, hospitals have seen three straight months of growing employment, and have added 13,300 jobs since August. Overall, hospitals employed more than 4.7 million people in October.

BLS data from September and October is preliminary and may be considerably revised in the coming months.

The job growth comes even as hospitals "mass layoffs," defined as of 50 or more employees, are close to the same record pace set in 2009. BLS data show that the nation's hospitals reported 10 mass layoffs in September—the latest figures available—and the pace of these job cuts in 2010 lags slightly behind the record 152 mass layoffs in 2009.

In the first nine months of 2010, there have been 112 mass layoffs at hospitals, averaging more than 12 mass layoffs each month. At this pace, hospitals would record 149 mass layoffs in 2010.

Hospitals shed 1,900 jobs in July, added 5,700 jobs in June, and shed 1,400 jobs in May, after creating 15,900 jobs in the first four months of the year.

The sector reported 92,600 payroll additions in the first 10 months of 2008. 

The healthcare sector—everything from hospitals, to chiropractors' offices, blood and organ donor banks, to walk-in clinics—added 24,100 jobs in October, and employed 13.8 million people that month. Healthcare has been one of the few areas of steady job growth during the recession and sputtering recovery, creating an average of 21,000 jobs each month, and 203,400 jobs in the first 10 months of 2010.

Healthcare created 215,300 jobs in 2009, and 738,000 jobs since the recession began in December 2007, BLS data show.

Job growth in the healthcare sector continues to be powered by ambulatory services, which accounted for 13,000 payroll additions in October, and 127,900 payroll additions in the first 10 months of 2010. Nursing and residential care facilities reported 6,000 payroll additions in October, and physicians' offices reported 2,700 payroll additions, BLS preliminary data show.

The larger economy gained 151,000 jobs in October, as the nation's jobless rate held at 9.6%. Since December 2009 nonfarm employment has increased by 847,000 jobs. However, 14.8 million people were unemployed in October, and 6.2 million of them were long-term unemployed who had been without a job for at least 27 weeks, BLS preliminary data show.