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Health care jobs account for 9.3% of total employment and growing

Analysis: BLS data shows one in five health care workers are registered nurses
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The health care industry is big business in the United States, and it has some of the fastest-growing occupations, according to new analysis from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Health care occupations vary widely in terms of skills and formal education required. They include health care practitioners such as physicians, registered nurses, laboratory technicians, and pharmacists; and people who provide health care support, such as nursing assistants, personal care aides, and home health aides,” says the BLS.

In 2022, there were more than 14.7 million people in health care occupations, about 9.3% on the total workforce. Registered nurses (RNs) is the largest occupation – numbering 3.4 million, or one in 5 health care worker – followed by personal care aids and nursing assistants – 1.4 million and 1.2 million respectively.

The new analysis also takes a deeper look at some of the gender and racial demographics of the industry.

  • 8 in 10 workers in all health care occupations were women, much higher than for overall employment, where women made up nearly one-half of all employed workers.
  • 60% of home health aides, 49% of personal care aides, and 47% of nursing assistants had a high school diploma or less;  this compares with 31% for all workers age 25 and older.
  • In contrast, women were slightly underrepresented among physicians (44%).
  • Nearly two-thirds of all health care workers were in the prime working ages of 25 to 54.
  • In 2022, 18% of all employed people in the nation were foreign born. Relative to their share of employment overall, the foreign born were overrepresented among home health aides (40%), personal care aides (28%), and physicians (27%). 
Employment in Health Care Projected to Grow

The BLS projects that employment in the health care industry will grow 13% from 2021 to 2031. This is expected to lead to more than two million jobs over the decade.

“In addition to new jobs from growth, opportunities arise from the need to replace workers who leave their occupations permanently. About 1.9 million openings each year, on average, are projected to come from growth and replacement needs,” according to the analysis.

And how much will those jobs pay?

“The median annual wage for health care practitioners and technical occupations (such as registered nurses, physicians and surgeons, and dental hygienists) was $75,040 in May 2021, which was higher than the median annual wage for all occupations of $45,760; health care support occupations (such as home health and personal care aides, occupational therapy assistants, and medical transcriptionists) had a median annual wage of $29,880 in May 2021, which was lower than the median annual wage for all occupations.”

Read all the newly released statistics on the health care industry here.

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.