US workers in this industry have job stability, fast wage growth and many benefits

The lucrative US labor market of recent years is over, and the unemployment rate has just risen to its highest level since October 2021. But there is still -have deep momentum in one industry.

These workers have many jobs throughout the country, and receive higher wages than those in the private sector. Employers in this industry also hire quickly and often offer great benefits such as generous signing bonuses and tuition reimbursement.

Enter America’s largest employer: the powerful health care industry.

So far in 2024, health care has added a staggering 59,000 jobs per month, on average, through July, according to Labor Department data released in early August. That is the most common of any industry, and includes positions such as nurses, home health aides and emergency medical technicians.

The demand for health care workers is hot, according to the latest government data on job opportunities. In June, the health care and social assistance industry had the highest seasonally adjusted job opening rate of any industry, at 7.6%, which is above the average. a total of 5.5% of 5.5% that month.

“Health care is the main engine of growth. I mean, it’s amazing how much demand there is for those workers,” said Julia Pollak, ZipRecruiter’s chief economist.

That has translated into richer salaries for health workers compared to the private sector as a whole. In the second quarter from last year, workers in the health care and social services industry saw their wages grow by 4.5%, a stronger share than the private sector’s 4% gain over the period. similar, according to the latest data from the Employment Cost Index. .

“Our population is aging and we’re still recovering in many ways from the Covid-19 pandemic, which is really stressing a lot of our resources,” said David Mafe, chief diversity officer and vice president of human resources. UCHealth, a nonprofit health system in the Denver metropolitan area, told CNN. “Health care has been facing these hiring challenges for a very long time.”

Health services are also very resistant to the ebb and flow of the economic cycle. For example, even in a recession, people will still need knee surgery, C-sections, chemotherapy or any other necessary medical services.

High earnings growth and strong benefits

Competition for workers is so intense in health care that employers are keeping pace.

UCHealth, which employs 33,000 people, typically has 2,700 job openings at any given time, Mafe said. He added that it has been very difficult to recruit respiratory doctors and specialist positions related to imaging or radiology.

“We’ve had to be a lot more aggressive about earnings in the last year and a half than before.” Mafe said. “We’re always looking at our benefits and making sure that what we’re giving our employees is really important to them and important to their families.”

UCHealth employees who work an average of 20 hours or more per week have “the opportunity to qualify for 100% of the tuition, books and fees paid by UCHealth for certain academic degrees,” in follow the program description. That includes college degrees and medical certificates, “which enable entry-level applicants to advance to professional and high-paying positions,” the definition notes.

Urgent to hire

Novant Health, a health care provider with about 40,000 employees based in North Carolina, is on a big hiring spree, offering several signing bonuses to sweeten the deal, Sebastien Girard, people at chief executive officer of the company, told CNN.

The number of nurses the company hired increased 46% from 2022 to 2023 and “is on track to exceed 2023 numbers this year,” the company said in a statement to CNN. Newly hired nurses with “specialty skills in high demand” are given signing bonuses of up to $30,000, the company said.

Novant Health is hiring at an even faster clip recently: Girard says a new process to accelerate hiring has resulted in a 91% reduction in time to fill positions, now taking 10 days to hire a nurse successfully.

“Almost every nurse or health care tech in the country has a job,” Girard said. “We’re recruiting from all over the country.”

So, how do I focus on health?

Both Mafe and Girard said they hear all the time about new hires who are new to the health profession. It will require going back to school, and the length of time depends on the specific job. For example, it takes less than a year to become a certified phlebotomist, for which there is a strong demand. However, becoming a registered nurse can take two to four years. Because the demand for health workers is so hot, however, students are often offered jobs before they graduate or receive a certificate, Mafe and Girard both said.

Pollak recalled one worker who had dived into health care and immediately reaped the rewards.

“One job seeker we talked to recently was a personal trainer, and during this pandemic, with all the restrictions in California, he realized he couldn’t make ends meet, so he took out a loan. money to go to nursing school,” Pollak said.

“Now she’s a nurse (neonatal intensive care unit), and she said she feels like she can go anywhere and do whatever she wants. She was able to be flexible and set her own hours, and was hired before she even graduated, without an interview. ”

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