The Healthcare Workforce Is Back. Was it Ever Gone? Will It Ever Go Away?

A new study is out that demonstrates once again that nothing, not even a deadly pandemic, can stop the healthcare workforce from growing.

Four researchers from Michigan, Brown and Indiana universities and the Rand Corp. wanted to find out if the healthcare workforce had recovered from COVID-19 pandemic. They’re the same researchers who in November 2023 published a study that said the healthcare workforce still grew during the pandemic but not as fast. So, the new study basically is a follow-up to their previous work.

The researchers published both studies in the Journal of American Medical Association.

This time, the researchers compared actual healthcare employment, including what happened during the pandemic, with predicted healthcare employment based on historic trends absent the pandemic.

As of the third quarter of 2024, total actual healthcare employment was about 24.4 million workers, or just 0.2%, less than if the pandemic never happened, according to the study. Total actual non-healthcare employment was about 131 million, or 2.9% less than if the pandemic never happened. The healthcare sector of the economy in terms of jobs recovered faster than all other sectors combined and was nearly back in line with historic trends.

Within the healthcare sector, the pace of the job recovery varied. To wit:

• Employment in office-based behavioral health practices was 40.6% higher than expected.
• Employment in physician offices was 1.2% higher than expected.
• Employment in hospitals was 0.7% higher than expected.
• Employment in skilled nursing facilities was 0.1% lower than expected.
• Employment in inpatient behavioral health facilities was 0.8% lower than expected.

Despite the above variation within healthcare,  the researchers declared healthcare employment “fully recovered” from the pandemic. That doesn’t give them much to work with for a third study, but that’s their problem.

Our problem is the inexorable growth in healthcare employment and the related costs that come with it. Someone has to pay for all those warm bodies, and that someone is us.

Will anything ever stop and reverse the ranks of the healthcare employed? Technological advancements have done nothing. Value-based care and reimbursement models have done nothing. Industry horizontal or vertical integration has done nothing.

The only thing left is us not getting sick or staying as healthy as possible by eliminating and/or managing chronic diseases. I guess it’s worth a shot.

To learn more about this topic, please read:

• “The Unstoppable Force of Hospital Beds and Hospital Employment”
• “Healthcare’s ‘Good Resignation’”