Hiring in Health Care
The Department of Employment & Economic Development (DEED) recently released brand new data from the Job Vacancy Survey, showing more than 36,000 vacancies in Health Care & Social Assistance. If you've followed past Local Look blogs, this high hiring demand will come as no surprise. Health Care is huge in Minnesota - it's the largest-employing industry sector, and the demand for health care services continues to increase as the state's population continues to age. For more local information, please reach out to your Regional Analyst!
DEED's Job Vacancy Survey shows Health Care & Social Assistance had nearly 20,500 job vacancies in the Metro Area in 2023. This was, far and away, the most job vacancies for any industry in the region. Where Health Care & Social Assistance accounted for 16.6% of the Metro Area's total covered employment in 2023, the industry accounted for 26.1% of the region's total job vacancies.
The number of job vacancies in the Health Care & Social Assistance industry reached a new peak in Central Minnesota in 2023, according to new data from the Job Vacancy Survey. Health Care employers in the region reported around 3,750 job openings in 2023, up nearly 325 vacancies from the previous peak in 2021, and up more than 30% from pre-pandemic levels. At that level, Health Care accounted for more than one in every four job openings in the region, which was also the highest rate ever recorded.
Advanced practice providers (APPs) are a rapidly growing set of high demand occupations within the health care field. Typically, they include Physician Assistants (PAs), Nurse Practitioners (NPs), Nurse Midwives and Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs). These occupations are unique in that they provide pathways into high-level health care provision without the requirement of a medical doctoral degree. This means a lower barrier of entry to high wage, high demand health care jobs.
Employment in the Health Care & Social Assistance sector increased from 2022 to 2023 in the Northwest, and in every other Minnesota Planning Area. However, workforce challenges continue and so does each region's need to address them. Notably, Northwest had the fastest overall job growth since 2018, but still experienced a decline in Health Care & Social Assistance. This is a stark contrast to the prior five-year period when Health Care & Social Assistance employment handily outpaced total employment growth in every region.
The Health Care & Social Assistance industry dominates Southeast Minnesota, accounting for over a quarter (27.3%) of total employment—the highest concentration of any planning region across the state in 2023. There were 1,982 firms in the Health Care & Social Assistance industry, providing an average annual wage of $83,460, which was $20,000 higher than the average annual wage across all industries in the region. Total payroll in the industry topped $5.54 billion, the highest payroll of all industries in the region.
Following record-setting vacancy levels in 2021 and 2022, the number of openings in Health Care & Social Assistance returned to pre-pandemic levels in Southwest Minnesota according to the newly released 2023 Job Vacancy Survey. Health Care employers reported just over 1,700 job openings in 2023, including almost 750 postings for Healthcare Practitioners & Technical occupations and just over 500 openings for Healthcare Support occupations.
|
