What Are the Recent Trends in Health Sector Employment

This updated chart collection uses federal labor data to compare jobs and wages in the health care sector with the rest of the economy. Health sector employment has grown steadily while job growth in other non-farm sectors has plateaued. Over the past year, the health sector added 378,500 jobs—a 2% increase—compared with 0.2% growth in non-health, non-farm employment. Health care wage growth has slowed slightly compared to other industries over the past three years.

Health care jobs now account for 11.6% of all non-farm jobs, up from 10.7% a decade ago. Since 1990, health sector employment has grown over three times as much as all other non-health, non-farm employment sectors, increasing most in outpatient settings (up 40% since August 2016.)

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