Healthcare Online Job Postings Slip

Help wanted ads for healthcare professionals dropped by 18,400 listing in July, even as the overall economy saw a modest increase of 139,200 in online job listings, a report released Monday shows.

The Conference Board's Help Wanted Online Data Series, which tracks more than 1,000 online job boards across the United States, said the drop in healthcare job ads was largely due to decreases in advertised vacancies for physical and occupational therapists, speech pathologists, pharmacists, physicians, and surgeons.

The Conference Board said labor demand varies greatly from the higher-paying practitioner and technical jobs, to the lower-paying support jobs. In June, the latest month for which unemployment data is available, advertised vacancies for healthcare practitioners or technicians outnumbered those looking for work in the fields by more than two to one.

The average wage in these jobs is $33.51 an hour. In marked contrast, the average wage for healthcare support occupations is $12.84 an hour and there were more than two jobless people looking for work in the field for every advertised vacancy.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which will release its employment statistics for July on Friday, has shown that the healthcare sector is one of the few areas in the economy that has seen monthly job growth throughout the recession, although that growth has slowed considerably since 2009. Despite the overall growth in the healthcare sector, hospitals for May and June have seen more than 4,600 job reductions—the first back-to-back cuts since January through April, 2000.

"After rising sharply in December and January, online job demand for the nation as a whole has settled into a more modest pattern over the last six months, with increases that have averaged about 43,000 per month," said June Shelp, vice president at The Conference Board. "The gains in job demand vary across the country with some East Coast states—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland?posting steady and strong upward trends throughout this year. Steady but more modest improvement better characterizes online job demand in other states like Washington, Ohio, Oregon and Texas."

Among the Top 10 occupations advertised online, there were more vacancies than unemployed people seeking positions for computer and mathematical science, healthcare practitioners, and architecture and engineering.

In transportation and material moving, there were more than eight people seeking or every online advertised vacancy, and there were more than four unemployed looking for work in installation, maintenance, and repair positions for every advertised opening.