Private-sector healthcare makes up a higher percentage of total U.S. employment than ever before, reaching 10.7 percent, according to a new report from the nonprofit healthcare research and consulting firm Altarum Institute.
That figure represents an increase of more than one percentage point since the start of the recession in Dec. 2007, when private-sector healthcare represented 9.5 percent of total employment.
The study was conducted by the Altarum Institute’s Center for Studying Health Spending; its analysis was based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The growth in healthcare jobs contrasts with the rest of the economy. The study shows that while healthcare employment increased 6.3 percent since December 2007, non-healthcare employment has fallen by 6.8 percent.
While healthcare jobs have helped offset the declines in other sectors, the health sector is likely to peak in the near future, according to Center for Studying Health Spending director Charles Roehrig
“Although health employment will continue to rise, we expect non-health employment will grow more rapidly so that health employment’s share of the total will stabilize,” he said in prepared remarks.
