Health care hiring up sharply from 2010

A government job count indicates health care is still generating employment, but a tally of classified ads suggests that hiring for some occupations in the medical sector may soften.

Health care added 37,300 jobs in April, according to data released May 6 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is in addition to the 74,800 added in the first quarter of the year and more than double the 17,300 added a year earlier (link).

Job growth in physician offices continued to be strong. In April, 6,600 jobs were added, compared with 200 a year earlier. About 16,500 positions were created in the first quarter of the year.

Hospitals added a significant number of positions. About 10,100 were added in April compared with 5,200 a year earlier. About 21,400 were added in the first quarter.

The figures were not broken down by occupation, but health care staffing experts say much of the hiring was for clinical positions.

A count of online classified ads, an indicator of future job creation, suggests that hiring of health care professionals may go down. But experts say demand is still high for physicians, nurses and other health care practitioners.

"While the number of ads relative to the number of unemployed in all of the major occupational categories deteriorated during the recession, for some relatively high-wage, high-tech categories, there were always more advertised vacancies than unemployed looking for jobs," said June Shelp, vice president of the Conference Board, an independent business research organization.

The monthly Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine report issued May 2 found that online classified job ads declined by 123,800 to 4,322,300 in April.

The number of ads for health care practitioners and technicians, a category that includes physicians, declined by 28,600 to 222,900. But there was still an average of three listings for each unemployed person trained for this type of job.