business
Practices expected to add twice as many jobs in 2011 as in 2010
■ The projected gain comes even as job growth at physician offices slowed in November.
By Victoria Stagg Elliott — Posted Dec. 8, 2011
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The number of new jobs at physician offices declined slightly in November, but practices are on track to create many more positions this year than last year.
Preliminary data for November indicate that 2,700 jobs were created at physician offices in November. This is a decrease from the 8,000 added in October, but far better than the 3,300 lost in November 2010. This is according to the monthly employment report issued Dec. 2 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (link).
Job creation in the health care setting sometimes slows a little near the end of the year, but 2011 most likely will beat last year's numbers by a wide margin. A total of 63,700 jobs already have been created in physician offices in 2011. At this rate, nearly 70,000 may be added to physician offices when December's statistics are tallied.
A total of 25,300 were added at physician offices in 2010, and 43,000 were created in 2009, when the recession was in full force.
The health care industry as a whole added 17,200 jobs in November, a modest decrease from the 25,500 new jobs in October. A total of 295,100 already have been created in 2011. At this pace, the annual total could hit 321,900. Health care added 253,400 jobs in 2010 and 237,500 in 2009.
Hospitals added 8,700 positions in November and 8,000 in October. A total of 16,500 were added in September. Hospitals have added 83,200 thus far in 2011 and are on track for a total of 90,700 jobs.
The BLS does not break down jobs by occupation, but a survey of help-wanted ads suggests that much of the growth is being driven by demand for clinicians.
The monthly Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine report issued Nov. 30 found that the number of job ads declined 76,200 to 3,857,200 for the economy. The call for health care practitioners and technicians, a category that includes physicians, went up and posted the largest growth of all the major occupational categories. The number of listings in this category grew 23,300 to 529,900. There were not enough trained people to fill these positions, with 2.6 ads for every job seeker (link).
