News: 34k jobs added to healthcare sector in March 2023, BLS reports

Following February’s return to pre-pandemic staffing levels in the healthcare workforce, the healthcare sector saw the addition of 34,000 jobs last month. This comes from data reported in the employment situation summary recently released by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on April 6. March’s growth is significantly lower than the 58,000 jobs added in January and the 44,200 jobs added in February. But while it may lower the average monthly gain of 54,000 jobs that the sector has seen in the last six months, healthcare remains one of the few sectors that trended up in job growth in March, HealthLeaders reported.

Of the 34,000 jobs added, the biggest growth came from home healthcare services at more than 15,000 jobs, followed by the ambulatory sector with 15,000 jobs, hospitals with 11,000 jobs, and nursing and residential care facilities with 8,000 jobs.

The total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 236,000, BLS stated, lower than the average monthly gain of 334,000 jobs in the last six months. Besides healthcare, the leisure and hospitality, government, and professional and business services sectors all saw a trend up in job gains once again. The United States unemployment rate and number of people unemployed stayed mostly flat at 3.5% and 5.8 million, respectively.

Editor’s note: To read HealthLeaders’ coverage of this story, click here. To access the BLS report, click here. To read about February’s healthcare job growth, click here, and for January, click here.