Online job ads for healthcare practitioners and technical workers tapered off in May, the second straight month of declines, but there were still nearly three jobs available for every highly skilled healthcare professional looking for work, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted Online report.
Labor demand for healthcare practitioners and technical occupations fell by 3,400 listings in April to 565,100. The drop was led by declines in advertised vacancies for speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, and physical therapists. Healthcare support positions grew by 4,100 new listings to 133,200 in April, even though there were declines in openings for physical and occupational therapist assistants, The Conference Board reports.
The board's Help Wanted Online Data Series tracks more than 1,000 online job boards across the United States.
Even with May's decline in online job listings, there were nearly three jobs for every healthcare technician and practitioner job seeker, with an average salary of $34.27 an hour. Conversely, there were 1.9 healthcare support workers for every online job listing, with pay averaging $12.94 an hour, The Conference Board reports.
Online job listings in healthcare continue to yo-yo from month to month. In April, labor demand for healthcare practitioners and technical occupations fell by 28,600 listings to 568,500, while support positions fell by 11,400 new listings to 129,100 for the month. In March, healthcare practitioners and technical occupations grew by 3,700, and healthcare support positions posted 4,400 new listings, with the primary demand coming for physical therapist assistants, home health aides, nursing aides, and medical assistants.
In January, The Conference Board reported 78,500 new listings for healthcare practitioners and technicians, and 16,600 new ads for healthcare support jobs, as healthcare jobs led a strong first month of 2011. However, February saw online job ads for practitioners and technical occupations drop by 4,300 owing largely to decreases in advertised vacancies for registered nurses and occupational and physical therapists, while support positions posted a decrease of 4,200.
In the overall economy, labor demand rose to a "pre-recession monthly high" of 4.5 million online advertised vacancies in May, up 148,000 listings from April, The Conference Board reports. "Overall, the trend in online advertised vacancies has been positive this year," June Shelp, vice president at The Conference Board, said in a media release. "Following the large increase of 526,000 in January, over the next four months the increase in advertised vacancies has averaged 66,000 per month. While we have now returned to the pre-recession levels of labor demand, the big difference today is the larger number of unemployed workers that are seeking jobs compared to four years ago."
In April 2011 there were 3.18 unemployed for every advertised vacancy, in contrast to the 1.5 unemployed for every vacancy in April 2007, Shelp said, and labor demand is still uneven across occupations.
John Commins is a content specialist and online news editor for HealthLeaders, a Simplify Compliance brand.