Health Care Industry Needs Workers

Economists and staffing experts say that while other industries are cutting back and laying off employees, the health care industry is in dire need of workers.

In fact, health care will generate 3 million new wage and salary jobs in the decade between 2006 and 2016, more than any other industry, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“People are coming out of other industries and getting into health care because it’s still growing,” said Cheryl Abbot, regional economist with the Labor Bureau. “No other industry can say that.”

In December, while the US economy shed more than half a million jobs, the health care industry added 32,000, the Labor Bureau reported.

For all of 2008, the economy lost nearly 2.6 million jobs while health care added about 372,000, the bureau said.