Chart Review: Changes In Health Care Employment

Margaret Barnhorst, Health Care Policy Fellow

According to Altarum’s November 2021 Health Sector Economic Indicators Brief, employment trends in the health care sector have broadly followed those in the non-health care sector since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with an initial drop in employment in April 2020 followed by a steady recovery. In October 2021, health care and non-health care employment were just short of pre-pandemic numbers, with each 2.8 percent lower than they were in February 2020.

On a closer look at the data, however, there is significant variation in the trends across health care fields. Employment in ambulatory health care services – which includes outpatient services such as physicians’ offices, dentists’ offices, and medical and diagnostic labs – has followed overall employment trends and is now 0.4 percent higher than it was in February 2020. Employment in hospitals has remained largely steady since a relatively small initial drop in April 2020; it is now 1.7 percent lower than in February 2020, though this figure only reflects employed staff and does not include temporary staff.

While the ambulatory health care and hospital sectors are close to full recovery from the effects of the pandemic, employment in nursing and residential care facilities has steadily declined since February 2020, perhaps in part due to challenging working conditions and low compensation. In October 2021, nursing and residential care facilities were operating with a workforce 12 percent below that of February 2020, a shortage of around 400,000 workers. Given that almost a quarter of all U.S. nursing home staff were unvaccinated as of October 2021, the shortage may continue to worsen with the looming January 4 vaccine mandate deadline for staff in health care facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid dollars.

Christopher Holt is the Director of Health Care Policy at the American Action Forum. 

https://www.americanactionforum.org/weekly-checkup/medicare-part-bs-historic-premium-increase/#ixzz7D42rOEC1
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