Health Care Has Become the Lifeblood of the Labor Market

New York Times By Lydia DePillis: March 6, 2026, 5:01 a.m. ET

An aging population is drawing workers to medical and social care, creating reliable jobs and revealing weakness for the rest of the economy.

It is an exceptionally difficult time to find a job in America, as employers work through a hiring hangover from the pandemic and hesitate to invest in new staff with policy changes coming fast and furious from Washington.

But the picture is even worse without one sector: health care.

The industry, and related professions in the social assistance category, added 693,000 positions last year. Without it, the economy would have lost 512,000 jobs, as business and professional services, retail, the federal government and manufacturing all contracted.

Health Care Has Led the Postpandemic Rebound
In recent years, the sector has made up for what would have otherwise been negative job growth.

Health care’s insatiable growth is good news for people who make it into the profession, offering mobility and options for advancement. It’s why nurses in New York City won pay increases and job protections last month after a weekslong strike that had forced hospitals to spend heavily on traveling staff, and why health care positions offer signing bonuses uncommon for most professions.

But it also highlights the sluggishness in the rest of the labor market, where hiring has been glacial. As the unemployment rate has drifted upward, most job postings have attracted qualified candidates quickly — except for medical positions, which are taking longer to fill, said Raj Namboothiry, senior vice president for the United States at Manpower, a staffing company.

“Health care has constantly shown gains when the rest of the sectors are on pause,” Mr. Namboothiry said. “This has become America’s most reliable job engine. Health care is keeping the lights on.”

Some of the growth is catch-up hiring for a sector that took longer than most to recover from the pandemic after frontline workers burned out and left the field. But the quicker pace could be sustained as the youngest baby boomers retire and need more care, from hospitals to home health aides.

“Health care stands out right now because it is doing its natural thing,” said Kosali Simon, a health economist at Indiana University-Bloomington. “What’s not happening is that other sectors are not doing the same. Health care is not as discretionary — it has to grow.”

An Ever-Stronger Anchor
The growth of the health care industry is not new. Driven by changes in consumer spending and expanding access to insurance as well as the aging population, the health and social assistance sector went from 8.3 percent of total employment in 1990 to nearly 15 percent today, compared with about 8 percent for manufacturing. Health care’s dominance only grows during recessions because people still have to go to the doctor even if they decide to put off buying a new car.

The sector’s expansion has been good for places that have become medical hubs, especially outside major metropolitan areas that have lost large industrial employers.

Take Montour County, Pa., which has the highest density of health care jobs in the country. More than half of its approximately 18,000 workers are employed in the industry, largely at the Danville headquarters of Geisinger Health, a hospital system that has been snapping up smaller clinics around the state. The company is in the middle of an $880 million construction project to add more operating rooms and private beds.

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