OLMIS

by Nick Beleiciks
Published Nov-9-2011

Jobs in health care are often considered some of the few "recession proof" jobs in the economy. Oregon's health care and social assistance sector as a whole seemed immune to the job losses which occurred in other industries. In fact, the health care and social assistance industry gained 11,600 jobs over the past two years, a gain of 6 percent, while the entire private sector (excluding health care) gained 0.8 percent of its total employment.

Naturally, many people looking for work right now are considering jobs in the health care sector. Information about new hires from the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) program reveals how many workers are hired by heath care and social assistance providers each quarter and how much money the average new hire earned.

The most current information about new hires in the health care and social assistance industry is from late 2010. In the third quarter of 2010, there were 12,722 stable new hires in the health care and social assistance industry (Table 1). A stable new hire is one who recently started working for an employer that he or she had not worked for during the past year and who continued to work for that employer for at least five months. In other words, these are workers who stuck with their new job.

These new employees earned an average monthly salary of $2,193, compared with the $3,638 average monthly salary of all health care and social assistance workers. Earnings for new hires in the health care industry were slightly higher than average earnings for new hires in Oregon, which were $2,172 in late 2010. Health care also has a lower turnover rate than the average industry, which suggests that fewer people in the sector are leaving their jobs.

A closer look into the health care and social assistance sector reveals that earnings and turnover rates vary significantly depending on the type of health care being provided. Ambulatory health care service providers, which include offices of health care practitioners like physicians and dentists, as well as other outpatient care centers, had the largest number of stable new hires. Ambulatory health care services paid new hires an average of $2,734 a month, and hospitals paid new hires $3,639 a month, much higher than the $2,172 earned by average new hires across all industries in late 2010. The two industries also had slower turnover rates, so established workers are probably sticking around longer.

New hires at care facilities earned an average of $1,705 per month in late 2010, and new hires averaged $1,403 per month at social assistance providers. The higher turnover rate in these industries suggests that there are opportunities for job seekers to move into jobs at care facilities and social assistance providers as more established workers change jobs.

The new hires data from LED suggests that, although the health care and social assistance sector is growing, the earning power of new hires is split between the higher-than-average earnings for those at ambulatory health care service offices and hospitals and the less-than-average earnings for those at the nursing and residential care facilities and social assistance providers.

Information about new hires in Oregon's health care and social assistance sector is from Local Employment Dynamics (LED) data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. To explore and use the data available from LED, visit http://lehd.did.census.gov/led/.