2012 Health Employment Growth at Historic High
March 15 2012 - 12:01PM
Business Wire
January and February 2012 saw the largest ever two-month
increase in health care jobs, with 49,000 new jobs created in
February and 43,000 in January. The soaring job creation has
brought the health sector share of total national employment to an
all-time high of 10.8 percent.
These figures come from the March “Health Sector Economic
Indicators” briefs released today by Altarum Institute’s Center for
Sustainable Health Spending. The complete set of briefs—covering
health care spending, utilization, prices and employment—can be
viewed at www.altarum.org/healthindicators.
Altarum’s data also reveal that health spending growth continues
a downward trend begun in February 2011, with just 3.4 percent
growth in January 2012 compared to January 2011, hovering around
the record full-year low of 3.8 percent in 2009. Health care
inflation, hitting 2.0 percent in January, remains at the lowest
level in 13 years.
“We appear to be in a beneficial period where the health sector
is creating jobs the economy clearly needs, yet rates of increase
in health spending and prices are still near historic lows,” said
Dr. Charles Roehrig, director of the Center for Sustainable Health
Spending. “There is some reason for concern, however, since
continued outsized health employment growth is likely to put
pressure on health spending and prices.”
With steady price inflation, and the rate of spending growth
falling in the last 12 months, growth in per capita health care
utilization slowed to an average of 0.4 percent in the last three
months. The health spending share of GDP was 18.0 percent in
December 2011, up from 16.4 percent at the start of the recession
(December 2007), but down from the all-time high of 18.2 percent in
June 2011.
Altarum’s Center for Sustainable Health Spending will host a
media conference call to discuss this month’s data. The call will
take place Thursday, March 15, 2012 at 1:00 P.M. (EDT). Interested
media should join the call by dialing 877-820-7831, participant
code 324-8445#.
Altarum Institute (www.altarum.org) integrates objective
research and client-centered consulting skills to deliver
comprehensive, systems-based solutions that improve health and
health care. Altarum employs more than 400 individuals and is
headquartered in Ann Arbor, Mich., with additional offices in the
Washington, D.C., area; Sacramento, Calif.; Atlanta, Ga.; Portland,
Maine; and San Antonio, Texas.