Hospitals cut 5.5K jobs in June
The healthcare sector has lost 537,000 jobs since the start of the pandemic in February 2020.
By John Commins, HealthLeaders Media
The healthcare sector lost 12,000 jobs in June, with hospitals recording a third straight month of job losses, preliminary federal data show.
Hospitals lost 5,500 jobs, and nursing homes lost 9,600 jobs in June. Those losses were slightly offset by 2,900 new jobs in ambulatory services, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday.
After seeing modest gains at the start of 2021, hospitals have recorded 10,200 job losses since April.
The healthcare sector has shed 537,000 jobs since the start of the pandemic in February 2020, with hospitals accounting for 102,000 job losses, and nursing homes accounting for 360,000 job losses. Ambulatory services sector has grown 75,400 jobs in that span. There were 15.9 million people attached to the healthcare sector workforce in June, BLS said.
The BLS report accounts for employment in mid-June and can be subject to considerable revision.
The larger economy saw solid job growth in June, with 850,000 new jobs created. Nonfarm payroll employment is up by 15.6 million since April 2020 but down by 6.8 million, or 4.4%, from its pre-pandemic level in February 2020.
"These measures are down considerably from their recent highs in April 2020 but remain well above their levels prior to the coronavirus pandemic, 3.5% and 5.7 million, respectively, in February 2020," BLS said.
Most of those jobs (343,000) were in the leisure and hospitality sector, with restaurant jobs (194,000) accounting for more than half that total. Those totals are down 2.2 million (13%) from February 2020. State and local government hirings rebounded as well, with 155,000 new jobs reported, as school systems across the nation rehire teachers.
The nation's unemployment rate remained largely unchanged at 5.8% in June, as did the number of jobless people, at 9.5 million.
John Commins is a content specialist and online news editor for HealthLeaders, a Simplify Compliance brand. This story first ran on HealthLeaders Media.