BLS federal jobs data for September casualty of shutdown

The federal government's jobs report last month left many eager to find out if the next report would again show weak gains or even losses in hospital employment in spite of durable growth in the healthcare sector at large.

But anyone who keeps close tabs on healthcare employment woke up this morning—the first Friday of October—without the monthly fix of federal jobs data thanks to the government shutdown in Washington.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles the monthly report that includes employment information and the unemployment rate. The one due today would have included data from September. Instead, the BLS' website shows the previous month's report and its media hotline leads to a greeting telling callers that messages won't be returned during the hiatus.

Last month's BLS report—for August—showed the healthcare sector added 32,700 new jobs, the most jobs added in any month in 2013.

Hospitals, though, added just 900 jobs in August. Three out of eight months in 2013 have seen decreases in the number of jobs at hospitals, and the past several months have brought a steady flow of news from hospitals resorting to layoffs to cut costs.

But relatively few hospital human-resource officials are considering layoffs, according to a survey conducted by the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration and HealthCareSource. The percentage of respondents who said they are (15%) has been the same in the past three years, said HealthCareSource Senior Education Manager Rebecca McNeil.

About 66% also said improving the employee retention rate would be a top initiative to reduce overall costs. Retaining information technology staff was once more proving a challenge for hospitals, as IT workers are in high demand in other industries, McNeil added.

CareerBuilder.com, meanwhile, offered to fill the void of jobs data. The company sent a news release Thursday reiterating the results of a report released last month on healthcare employment. The data, produced with Economic Modeling Specialists International, suggests that healthcare and social assistance employers have added 365,000 jobs since the start of 2012, and no other industry has added more. The five healthcare occupations that have added the most jobs, according to CareerBuilder, were registered nurses, 50,798; home health aides, 49,530; nursing assistants, 13,097; and medical assistants, 11,275.

Follow Ashok Selvam on Twitter: @MH_aselvam