Benefits of Healthcare Jobs Spur Ongoing Debate

BLS data shows ambulatory services, which include physicians' offices, led healthcare with 8,900 new jobs in July. Hospitals created 5,300 jobs, and nursing and residential homes dropped 2,200 jobs. BLS data from June and July are preliminary and may be revised considerably in the coming months.

More than 14.3 million people worked in the healthcare sector in July, with more than 4.8 million of those jobs at hospitals and more than 6.3 million jobs in ambulatory services, which includes more than 2.4 million jobs in physicians' offices.

In the larger economy, BLS said 12.8 million people were unemployed in July, which was essentially unchanged throughout 2012. The number of long-term unemployed, defined as those who have been jobless for 27 weeks or longer, remained at 5.2 million people in July, representing 40.7% of the unemployed.