Health care has been adding jobs for over 5 years
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The health care industry added almost 24,000 jobs in August, helping to buoy overall employment growth amid economic fears associated with the U.S.-China trade war.
The big picture: Almost 1 out of every 9 Americans works in health care, and the industry has not seen a net loss of new jobs in any month since January 2014. But everyone's insurance premiums and tax dollars are funding this swelling workforce.
Between the lines: More than half of all health care job additions occurred in ambulatory settings, like doctors' offices, outpatient centers and home health agencies.
- Home health aides, in particular, are in high demand as a graying population chooses to get more care at home. But the work is strenuous and does not pay well.
- Hospitals remain a major source of employment and have not cut the net number of jobs since November 2017. Hospitals still crave admissions, and are hiring people to fill roles in some of their empire-building projects.
The bottom line: Health economist Uwe Reinhardt famously said, "Every dollar of health spending = someone else's dollar of health care income." A consistently growing workforce means it'll be that much more difficult to control the country's ballooning health care spending.
