Health care employers continued hiring at a brisk clip in April while the rest of the economy posted a third straight month of job gains of more than 235,000.
Health care as an industry added 37,300 jobs in April, growing the workforce of 14 million by 0.3 percent, according to seasonally adjusted preliminary figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The growth—the strongest in six months’ time—put the 12-month growth rate at 2.3 percent, or 317,000 total jobs.
In hospitals, officials added 10,100 jobs, growing the workforce of 4.7 million by 0.2 percent. Despite two months of steady growth, hospitals have posted among the lowest one-year job-growth rates in health care, expanding by just 0.6 percent, or 28,300 jobs, since last April.
Physician offices have grown more than twice as fast, adding 36,300 jobs to their 2.3 million employed, or 1.6 percent, in the past year. In April, doctors grew their staffs by 6,600 jobs, or 3 percent.
The national unemployment rate, however, ticked up slightly to 9 percent in April.
Filed by Joe Carlson of Modern Healthcare, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.
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