business
Physician demand strong despite softening of health care market
■ Practices and hospitals are continuing to hire all positions, though not as much as in 2010.
Advertisements recruiting health care practitioners and technicians declined slightly in February, as did actual hiring in health care, according to two recently released reports. But experts say demand for physicians remains strong.
Physician recruiters say hospitals and large health systems continued to seek primary care physicians, as well as some specialties, to fill employed positions. Uncertainty about health system reform means more institutions want to employ physicians directly. Another factor is an aging population that has increased demand for health care services.
"Obviously, primary care remains a huge need -- both internal medicine and family medicine," said Kevin Perpetua, a managing partner in Atlanta's Medicus Firm, a physician recruitment and placement company. "Those specialties continue to be in very high demand. We are also seeing a lot of needs for urology, orthopedic surgery and pulmonary disease physicians."
Ads for health care practitioners and technicians declined by 4,300 in February, from 604,400 to 600,100, according to the monthly report by The Conference Board's Help Wanted OnLine Data Series released March 2. The decrease was primarily due to reductions in listings for registered nurses, occupational therapists and physical therapists and not physicians.
Researchers said this modest dip tends to occur around this time of year and should not be considered significant. Job listings for health care practitioners and technicians jumped by 78,500 in January.
Health care continued to drive much of the job creation as the economy recovers from the recession.
About 192,000 jobs were added to the economy as a whole, according to the monthly report released March 4 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of these, 34,300 were in health care, with nearly half -- 15,300 -- at nursing and residential care facilities. About 1,500 were added in physician offices, and 2,100 were created at hospitals.
In January, 8,700 jobs were added in health care, with 1,300 in physician offices. An additional 900 more were created in the hospital setting.
Health care was one of the few bright spots in the economy in 2010, adding an average of 22,000 jobs a month, including 2,100 a month in physician offices. Hospitals added an average of 3,100 jobs a month.
