Health Jobs Explode Versus Non-Health Jobs

Health jobs exploded in this morning’s jobs report, growing more than three times faster than non-health jobs (0.28 percent versus 0.09 percent). With 43,000 jobs added, health services accounted for over one quarter of 156,000 new nonfarm civilian jobs.

The disproportionately high share of job growth in health services is a deliberate outcome of Obamacare. While this trend persists, it will become increasingly hard to carry out reforms that will improve productivity in the delivery of care.

Ambulatory sites added jobs at a much faster rate than hospitals (0.41 percent versus 0.21 percent). This was concentrated in offices of physicians, which alone added. Ambulatory sites added 30,000 jobs, versus 11,000 in hospitals. This is a good sign because hospitals are high-cost locations of care versus doctors’ offices and other ambulatory sites.

See Table I below the fold:

Year on year, the broad trend is similar, with health jobs increasing over twice as fast as non-health jobs (2.76 percent versus 1.36 percent). However, jobs in labs and nursing facilities are flat (Table II).

There was a revision adding net 12,000 jobs to last month’s estimates for October and November. This entire net revision of those two months’ estimates was within health jobs (Table III).