Winners and losers in 2024 healthcare employment

Every year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics issues revised monthly employment numbers often going back several years to account for data that was not available at the time of the original reports. Whether a sector adds jobs or not in the course of a year, the revisions can affect the total.

This year, annual revisions were in line with analysts' expectations, according to Danny Schmidt, healthcare senior industry analyst at the audit, tax and consulting firm RSM US. 

Related: Healthcare leaders get creative to combat staffing challenges

Here's how healthcare employment fared in 2024.

Winners

Nursing and residential care facilities, particularly nursing care facilities, added jobs and received a big boost from annual revisions. The sector finally reached and surpassed the level of employment it had in January 2020, the month the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a public health emergency. It was the last healthcare sector to hit that milestone, as ambulatory services and hospitals had both surpassed their pre-pandemic levels before 2023.

• Nursing and residential care facilities overall saw a year-over-year increase of 136,400 to 3.4 million, with revisions making up 34,300 of the increase.
• The sector was mostly affected by increases in the nursing care facilities sub-sector, which added 57,200 jobs in 2024, with revisions accounting for 23,800. However, this sub-sector has yet to recover to its January 2020 employment level.

Winners, but ...

With revisions, overall healthcare employment increased year-over-year by just under 680,000. But that's 19,100 fewer after revisions.

• Ambulatory care services employment increased by 332,600 year-over-year, 46,900 fewer after revisions.
• Hospital employment increased 210,900 year-over-year, 6,500 fewer after revisions.

Even after revisions, the rate of increase in employment for some sectors was slower than in 2023.

Losers

Medical and diagnostic laboratories was the only healthcare sector that shed jobs in 2024, continuing a trend that started in 2022. After hitting 322,000 in June 2022, employment has shrunk by 16,300, with most of the losses coming in 2024.

Schmidt said the reduction in employment at medical labs is part of the broader job market normalizing since the pandemic. Despite the job losses, he remains bullish on the sector, particularly in light of potential advancements related to the use of artificial intelligence.

“Quicker lab results and earlier disease detection with higher accuracy rates translates into better consumer outcomes at a lower cost," he said. "This is a good thing for business and consumers.”