Hospital Job Growth Continues Despite Record Pace of Layoffs

Job growth in the healthcare sector continues to be powered by ambulatory services, which accounted for 17,200 payroll additions in September, and 117,200 payroll additions in the first nine months of 2010. Nursing and residential care facilities reported 3,800 payroll additions, and physicians' offices reported 3,400 payroll additions, BLS preliminary data show.

The healthcare sector—everything from hospitals, to chiropractors' offices, blood and organ donor banks, to walk-in clinics—employed 13.8 million people in September, and 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 186,200 jobs in the first nine months of 2010. Healthcare created 215,300 jobs in 2009, and 719,900 jobs since the recession began in December 2007, BLS data and preliminary data show.

In the larger economy, 14.8 million people were unemployed in the United States in September, and 6.1 million of them were long-term unemployed who had been without a job for at least 27 weeks. However, the number of long-term unemployed has decreased by 640,000 since May, BLS preliminary data show.

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Hospital Job Postings Drop, But Demand Steady