The health care industry has been a beacon of job growth in the US, with employers in the health care and social services sector adding 695,000 jobs in 2025 through November, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is in stark contrast to the overall labor market, which has added 610,000 jobs over the same period. In fact, without the health care sector, the economy would have lost about 85,000 jobs.<\/p>\n
Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor, notes that “health care remains the engine of jobs growth for the U.S.” However, he also warns that “the job market outside of health care does look like it’s freezing up.” This is a worrying sign for job seekers and the US economy, as it suggests that the labor market is becoming increasingly reliant on a single industry.<\/p>\n
The strength of the health care industry is underpinned by a massive long-term demographic shift in the US, as baby boomers enter their retirement years. Older adults tend to spend more on health care, driving up demand for health services and creating a need for more workers to meet that demand. According to Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab, “baby boomers are also a very wealthy generation,” and their wealth has increased in recent years amid a surge in asset values. Demand for health care is correlated with income, she notes.<\/p>\n
The health care and social assistance sector has added jobs in every month since January 2022, according to the BLS. This is not true of other major sectors, including mining and logging, construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, utilities, information, financial activities, professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and government.<\/p>\n
The broad labor market has cooled as businesses have grappled with relatively high interest rates and “extreme economic uncertainty” around tariff policy and impact. The government workforce has also come under pressure from hiring freezes and cuts to the federal workforce implemented by the Trump administration. However, consumer spending has proven resilient, likely providing a backstop to the job market.<\/p>\n
Some other industries have added jobs on a net basis in 2025, including leisure and hospitality, which has added 115,000 jobs through November, and construction, which has added 43,000. However, the list of industries consistently losing jobs is longer than that of those consistently adding \u2013 “which is really just health care,” Zhao notes.<\/p>\n
Health spending tends to be insulated from economic downturns, which could help prop up the labor market and economy if the job market were to cool further. However, demand for health care \u2013 and, by extension, job growth in the sector \u2013 could come under pressure as a result of budget cuts enacted by Republican lawmakers. For example, enhanced premium subsidies for consumers who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace are set to expire at year’s end, which could lead to nearly 5 million people losing their insurance coverage next year.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the “big beautiful bill” Republicans passed in July made cuts to Medicaid that kick in over a number of years. Starting in January 2026, the law eliminates the enhanced federal funding for states that choose to expand Medicaid for the first time. “And as health-care funding cuts start to hit, that could slow jobs growth in the industry,” Zhao warns.<\/p>\n
For those looking to transition into the health care industry, it’s essential to consider the various roles beyond patient care, such as internal auditors, economists, and information technology workers, which can provide relative job security and stability. To learn more about the health care job market and its trends, visit Here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The health care industry has been a beacon of job growth in the US, with employers in the health care and social services sector adding 695,000 jobs in 2025 through November, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is in stark contrast to the overall labor market, which has added 610,000 jobs over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/image.cnbcfm.com\/api\/v1\/image\/108243173-1765999362410-gettyimages-2250485634-ocr-l-uciopens-1211-10-pb.jpeg?v=1765999410&w=1920&h=1080","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sosahustle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sosahustle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sosahustle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosahustle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosahustle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sosahustle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":916,"href":"https:\/\/sosahustle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914\/revisions\/916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosahustle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sosahustle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosahustle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosahustle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}