Outpatient and hospital employment grows, but nursing-care jobs cut

Healthcare employers added 23,800 jobs in February as physician offices and other ambulatory settings continued to propel the growth.

However, the month-over-month job growth last month was the lowest total since September, when healthcare gained 22,600 jobs. The slowdown may be explained in part by the severe winter weather that has ravaged most of the country, especially the East Coast.

Although ambulatory facilities and hospitals hired more workers in February, nursing homes and residential-care facilities cut jobs, according to seasonally adjusted figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (PDF). Nursing homes and residential-care employment fell by 4,800. In January, nursing homes and residential-care facilities added 7,000 monthly jobs. The subsector still added 34,500 jobs in the year that ended in February, a 1% increase.

The ambulatory-care sector added 19,900 jobs in February, up 2.9% from January. Physician office hiring accounted for 7,300 of those jobs. More than 2.52 million people nationwide now work in the physician office setting. Across all ambulatory-care facilities, including outpatient buildings and surgery centers, employment increased by 251,500 jobs in the year that ended in February, a 3.8% boost.

Hospitals hired 8,700 people in February. That was 0.2% higher from January, raising the subsector's payroll to almost 4.84 million employees. Economists have predicted the healthcare hiring boom will largely bypass hospitals because they are facing continued reimbursement pressures from federal and private payers. Hospitals are also gradually moving more of their procedures, where possible, to outpatient settings.

The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 5.5%, the lowest rate since May 2008.

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