Hospitals and health systems added 15,900 jobs last month, according to preliminary seasonally adjusted figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released last week. Hospitals created more than 100,000 jobs in the first eight months of this year alone.
The number of people added to hospital payrolls last month demonstrated more growth than most other industry sectors. For example, those additions were more than double the net job gains seen in the entire transportation and warehousing industry.
The growth comes despite industry predictions from earlier this year that hospitals would miss out on the healthcare hiring spree. However, admissions have increased at many health systems this year, which appear to have spurred human resource departments to scale up staffing.
Milwaukee-based Froedtert Health said its admissions were up 5.5% in its most recent fiscal year ended June 30. Inpatient volume in the first half of 2015 increased 4.3% at UnityPoint Health, based in Iowa. Hospitalizations at the Cleveland Clinic were up 2.5% in the most recent quarter.
Moody's Investors Service has stable outlooks for both not-for-profit and for-profit hospitals, partly because of higher admissions resulting from the Affordable Care Act's insurance expansion.
Hospitals are not only increasing staff sizes; they are also boosting the salaries of many low-wage workers because of the tightening labor market.
St. Louis-based Ascension Health set a systemwide minimum wage of $11 an hour, effective July 5. Geisinger Health System, based in Danville, Pa., more recently raised wages for all its employees to $10 an hour.
Employment across the entire healthcare industry jumped by 40,500 jobs, an 8% increase from the number of healthcare jobs added in July. Physician offices, outpatient centers and other ambulatory sites created 21,100 of those jobs. Payrolls at nursing and residential-care facilities grew by 3,500.
The entire U.S. economy added 173,000 jobs in August, and the total unemployment rate dropped to 5.1%—the lowest figure since April 2008.
—Bob Herman
