How the COVID-19 pandemic affected healthcare jobs: 6 charts

The COVID-19 pandemic was declared a national emergency by the Trump administration on March 13, 2020, and shutdowns related to the public health emergency quickly meant the loss of almost 1.6 million healthcare jobs.

Here's a look at how deep the drop in employment was for various types of healthcare jobs and how long it took to recover.

Overall healthcare and its major sectors

Healthcare employment fell 9.6% by April 2020, with ambulatory healthcare services — which includes offices of physicians, dentists and medical laboratories — experiencing the biggest percentage drop of 16.8%.

Employment levels in some areas began to recover after a few months. It took 13 months for ambulatory health services jobs to reach the level thery had been at in January 2020.

Jobs losses at nursing homes and residential care facilities didn't hit a low until January 2022, and didn't get back to where they had been in January 2020 until the beginning of 2025.

Ambulatory healthcare services

As a percentage of jobs lost, dentist offices had the most severe drop in employment, followed by losses at other types of healthcare providers including chiropractors, optometrists and mental health practitioners.

Job losses in many areas bottomed out in April 2020. Jobs in medical labs started recovering rapidly due to demand for COVID-19 testing.

Nursing homes and residential care facilities

Nursing homes experienced the biggest drop in employment, both by percentage and number of jobs lost.

Nursing homes and residential care facilities took a long time to stop shedding jobs, and most took many months to recover to their January 2020 level. Nursing homes have yet to recover.