What Impact Has the Coronavirus Pandemic Had on Health Care Employment?

This chart collection takes a deep dive into employment data  to analyze how jobs and wages in the health sector shrank and recovered during the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike past recessions, the health sector saw a big drop in employment in early 2020 but began to recover by May 2020. As of December 2022, the number of people employed in the health sector was 1.2% higher than in February 2020 (the previous peak).

The data show that the number of workers employed in nursing care and elder care continues to remain significantly below pre-pandemic levels even after other health settings recovered all or most of their lost jobs.

The chart collection is available  on the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, an online information hub dedicated to monitoring and assessing the performance of the U.S. health system

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Headquarters: 185 Berry St., Suite 2000, San Francisco, CA 94107 | Phone 650-854-9400
Washington Offices and Barbara Jordan Conference Center: 1330 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005 | Phone 202-347-5270

www.kff.org | Email Alerts: kff.org/email | facebook.com/KFF | twitter.com/kff

The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news, the Kaiser Family Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California.