Job growth in the healthcare sector has been strong in the United States. In recent years, job growth has plateaued across non-health, non-farm sectors, while employment in the health sector continues to grow steadily. In the last year, 378,500 healthcare jobs were added to the economy, a 2% increase, compared to only a 0.2% increase in non-health, non-farm employment during the same time.
This chart collection uses the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Employment Statistics (CES) and Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data to analyze how jobs and wages in the healthcare industry compare to non-healthcare sectors, and how growth is distributed across different types of healthcare facilities and providers.
Some key findings from this analysis include:
- Health care jobs represent 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.
- Health care employment has increased most in outpatient settings, up 40% since August 2016.
- Both health and non-healthcare job openings have fallen to their pre-Covid levels.
- Wage growth of health care employees have slowed slightly compared to other industries over the past three years.
- Wage growth in elderly care and skilled nursing care facilities have increased over 50% since July 2016.
Growth in health sector employment has outpaced other non-health jobs
In August 2026, the health sector added 13,000 jobs over the previous month, representing 8% of all non-farm jobs. Since 1990, jobs in the health sector have grown 131.1%, compared to all other non-farm employment which has grown only 38.9%.
Health sector jobs generally continue to grow even during recessions. During the Great Recession from December 2007 through June 2009, for example, health sector employment increased by 430,400 jobs while non-health, non-farm sectors saw a significant decline, down by 7,817,100 jobs. Health sector jobs initially fell sharply along with jobs in other sectors at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic (February 2020 to April 2020); however, health sector employment did not fall as steeply as jobs in the rest of the economy and was able to rebound more quickly.
Over the last several months, health care jobs have continued to grow from 18.1 million in August 2025 to 18.5 million in August 2026, despite plateauing job growth in the general workforce.
Employment in outpatient care centers has consistently grown faster than other selected healthcare settings in the last decade
Since August 2016, most health service settings have seen steady growth in employment, aside from the sharp drop in employment across all health care settings early in the pandemic.
Overall, employment in outpatient care centers has grown the fastest, increasing 39.1% since August 2016, as more health care services move from inpatient to outpatient settings, and the rate of hospital outpatient visits increases.
Employment in home health care services has seen the second fastest growth, increasing 38.5% since July 2016. Current growth is consistent with occupation projections showing that home health and personal care aides have some of the highest current and predicted growth across occupations, expected to increase 17% by 2034 (average growth for all occupations is 3%).
Skilled nursing care facilities are the only healthcare setting, except offices of podiatrists (not shown), to see a decrease in employment since 2016, though the decline was modest. Skilled nursing facilities have experienced staffing shortages due to burnout and low pay in recent decades, an issue exacerbated by the pandemic. During the pandemic, employment in skilled nursing facilities fell drastically and continued to decrease until March 2022. Since March 2022, employment growth in skilled nursing care facilities has increased steadily, although it has not yet returned to 2016 levels.
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Among outpatient care centers, outpatient mental health and substance abuse centers have had a 50% increase in employment
Employment in outpatient care centers has grown since July 2016 (except for the early pandemic drop). Outpatient mental health and substance abuse centers experienced the second-fastest growth among outpatient care centers, increasing 50% since July 2016, mirroring increases in treatment. The slowest growth across all outpatient care centers has been among kidney dialysis centers, growing only 8%. Employment in all other outpatient care centers (including a variety of providers such as family planning, rehabilitation, and pain centers) has increased almost 80%, growing almost twice as fast as outpatient centers overall (up 39.7% since July 2016).
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Growth in job openings in the health sector, like the rest of the economy, has slowed down since 2022
The annual Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data show that of the over seven million job openings in July 2026, 1,438,000 (about 20%) were for healthcare and social assistance. A decade ago, in July 2016, there were 5,962,000 total job openings, and healthcare and social assistance made up 1,018,000 (17%).
The JOLTS data shows that the combined number of health and social assistance job openings had been increasing since July 2016, hitting a record high in March 2022. Even after continued declines since April 2022, job openings in healthcare and social assistance have grown 41% as of July 2026, compared to July 2016. Job openings across the broader labor market have grown by a comparatively smaller 22% as of July 2026. Of note, while the data in the chart include health and social assistance, the health care sector makes up about two thirds of the jobs and likely a similarly large portion of job openings and separations.
Job quits, like openings, are elevated in the health sector compared to all job quits, while trending downward since peak quits in 2023
Overall, health and social assistance job quits are lower after spiking during the pandemic. Ten years ago, job quits across health and social assistance, and non-health sectors were similar, dropping and then rising sharply during the pandemic.
Compared to the rest of the economy, though, job quits in health and social assistance are still higher, up 34.7% between July 2016 and July 2026 compared to other sectors up 3%. This difference may be driven by a variety of sector-specific challenges including wage growth, work conditions, or a combination of these and other influences.
Average weekly earnings have increased steadily among all employees, lagging in the heath sector starting in 2023
Healthcare employees have seen average earnings increases that generally mirror the increases seen by all private-sector employees. Between July 2016 and July 2026, average weekly earnings for employees of all private organizations increased by 46%, while healthcare employee average earnings increased by 41%, lagging slightly behind average earnings for all jobs. The gap in cumulative earnings growth between health care jobs compared to and the average across all jobs has widened since 2023.
Increases in average earnings don’t necessarily translate to higher pay for a given worker – they could instead be driven by changes in the distribution of high- or low-wage workers in a given sector. An increase in the number of unemployed low-wage workers would make the average wage higher. It is also important to note that these are nominal earnings and do not account for inflation’s impact on purchasing power.
Average earnings in elderly care and skilled nursing facilities have seen higher increases
Though there has been a strong upward trend in health sector earnings, these average earnings increases have not been equal across health employment settings. From July 2016 to July 2026, average weekly earnings have increased the most in skilled nursing facilities (up 57%), and elderly care facilities (up 53%). On average, skilled nursing care facility employees have seen the highest average earning increases in the previous decade, paired with the slowest growth in overall employment.
Outpatient care centers have seen the largest rise in employment in recent decades and have high average earning increases as well. Average earnings for outpatient care center workers from July 2016 to July 2026 rose by 48% compared to healthcare earnings overall growing 41%. Not all settings have seen high average growth, however. Wages of physician office employees have just a 29% average earnings increase.
The Peterson Center on Healthcare and KFF are partnering to monitor how well the U.S. healthcare system is performing in terms of quality and cost.
