ANALYSIS: Home Health Care Jobs Continue to Grow

Home health care jobs continue to be among the fastest-growing in the country, according to a new analysis (pdf) published by the Altarum Institute.

Over the last 12 months, private-sector home health care added nearly 75,000 jobs — a seasonally adjusted growth rate of 6.5 percent. 

Overall, meanwhile, private-sector health care jobs grew by just 3.4 percent over that same timeframe, while non-health care jobs grew at a 1.8 percent rate.

Since the U.S. officially entered a recession in December 2007, home health care jobs have grown at an average annual rate of 4.9 percent, far outpacing the annual growth rate of health care jobs as a whole (2 percent).

Private-sector home health care services employed nearly 1.4 million people in March 2016, the analysis shows — up from just 933,000 in December 2007.

Home health care added 30,000 jobs in the first quarter of 2016 alone.

The Altarum Institute’s analysis, however, sounds a cautionary note about whether these will continue across the health care sector. 

“While we may be overly straining our eyes to read the tea leaves, we do expect the job growth pace in the health sector to cool from its recent, brisk pace,” the analysis says.

— by Matthew Ozga