Healthcare Workforce Rose 312K Despite Ongoing Hospital Job Losses

June 10, 2020 - The healthcare workforce increased by 312,400 jobs from April to May 2020, largely driven by additions to the ambulatory care space, the Bureau of Labor Statistics unveiled in its latest job report.

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The employment data released late last week showed that, from April to May, approximately 375,700 were added to the ambulatory care space, including physician offices, home health agencies, and medical and diagnostic laboratories. But a large portion of the healthcare workforce boost came from the reopening of dentist offices.

Dentist offices added 244,800 jobs during the one-month period, representing the largest increase in employment across all healthcare sectors.

The portion of the healthcare workforce practicing in physician offices increased by 51,300 positions in May 2020. However, that was after dropping over 93,600 jobs, or 9 percent of its workforce, the previous month. The offices of other healthcare practitioners also recently saw an increase in jobs (73,100 jobs) after losing nearly 21 percent of its workforce in April.

According to the latest job report, outpatient centers also added 10,800 jobs, while medical and diagnostic laboratories faced a modest increase of 400 jobs.

Meanwhile, hospitals continued to suffer from job losses, with the sector experiencing a decrease of 26,700 positions in May 2020.

Hospitals have been on the frontline of the COVID-19 crisis, but response efforts have put a strain on hospital finances. Financial losses tied to coronavirus-related expenses are slated to total $202.6 billion by the end of June, with hospitals losing an average of $50.7 billion a month, the American Hospital Association (AHA) recently estimated.

Financial losses are stemming not only from the costs of COVID-19 hospitalizations and additional supplies and equipment needed to treat infected patients, but also revenue declines resulting from the cancelation of nearly all elective, non-emergent service lines.

These losses prompted many hospitals to make the decisions to either furlough or lay off employees to sustain operations.

Communities across the country are starting to reopen, allowing for hospitals and other healthcare providers to resume some elective surgeries and procedures. Overall, this has led to a boost in US employment in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, hospitals still appear to be shedding jobs.

The nearly 27,000 decrease in the hospital workforce adds to the 134,900 loss reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in April.

Nursing and residential care facilities were the only other sector in healthcare to experience job losses from April to May 2020, with a 36,000 decline in the workforce. Home health agencies also reported a loss of 3,000 jobs during the period.

The federal government has earmarked over $175 billion in coronavirus relief funds for hospitals and other healthcare providers, including forgivable loans for small hospitals and practices to cover payroll expenses and keep staff on board.

But hospital and physician groups alike have been advocating for additional relief from the COVID-19 crisis.  Last week, the AHA called on HHS to increase coronavirus relief funds to hospitals by another $50 billion, including more targeted funds for hospitals in COVID-19 hotspots.

Congress also recently passed legislation to ease payroll loan terms, including loan and repayment periods and loan forgiveness requirements. The legislation will also allow borrowers to use more of the loan on non-payroll expenses.

In the meantime, hospitals that have avoided furloughs and layoffs are touting the benefit of labor and productivity analytics tools. Nebraska Medicine recently shared with RevCycleIntelligence how productivity data enabled the health system to quickly redeploy staff to other areas of the organization experiencing higher-than-normal workloads. This allowed system to keep staff on and avoid furloughs during the pandemic.