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Health Care Succumbs to the Recession [All the jobs are gone

Published: Apr 13, 2009

Well, it's all but official: Nobody's hiring.

According to a new article in the Wall Street Journal, "Employment in health care, the only major industry outside the federal government still adding jobs, is succumbing to the recession." The health care industry is usually the one sector to survive economic downturns relatively unscathed, and from 1990 until recently, the growth in health care and social assistance employment has far outpaced job gains in the broader job market.

However, this recession appears to have finally taken the wind out of the health care sails. Health services jobs are being added at a much slower pace than usual, and big hospitals have recently announced layoffs and budget cuts. Pharmaceutical companies and insurers are also feeling the sting.

Is this decline a sign of a long-term trend? Probably (hopefully) not, but you have to wonder where we're all going to turn in the meantime. Summer is on the way, I guess we could all go get jobs on the boardwalk. If health care isn't recession proof, maybe tourism still will be. And those people always seemed happy at work, didn't they?


Recession Now Hits Jobs in Health Care [Wall Street Journal]


--Posted by Steven Schiff, Vault News & Commentary

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