Healthcare Job Rate Slows, But Technology Could Increase It

Traditionally known as the one recession-proof industry, the health care job market has begun to slow in recent months. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 9,000 new jobs were created in health care in June—up 1,000 from May but still well below the 2009 monthly average. The U.S. unemployment rate did drop in June, down to 9.5 percent, while a total of about 83,000 people were hired last month. Outplacement research firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that "the pace of downsizing has slowed significantly from a year ago," although last month the number of layoffs edged up by 1.4 percent.

"Technology in health care may drive the next wave of hires," said John Burkhardt, Director of Operations at Seattle-based career website MedZilla.com, the internet's most established source for health care, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology job postings. "Last month, the number of job postings in health care IT was up by 4.5 percent." Consulting firm Accenture reported that, in a recent survey about the use of cloud computing, about 32 percent of health care respondents said they were already using the cloud to store data, while 73 percent of respondents said they would be moving to the cloud in the near future.

According to MedZilla, postings for sales jobs and customer support positions were up more than 4.5 percent and 6.5 percent in June, respectively. As for companies actively seeking new employees, many states saw increases over the past month—Nevada companies searched 5.1 percent more than in May, while Indiana and Pennsylvania were both up more than three percent and three other states were up by more than one percent. Only Florida and New York saw decreases of more than one percent in candidate search activity. Additionally, for the first time in many months, two states saw significant changes in job search activity by qualified applicants—New Yorkers searched almost 1.5 percent more in June, and Californians 1.1 percent less.