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Job Growth for Occupational Therapists and Healthcare Talent Shortage Continues, Despite Disappointing BLS Stats

By Abby Lombardi on June 7, 2011 in Health Care, Health Care - XLV, Occupations, Staffing Industry.

Last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced their Employment Situation Summary for May.  Although job growth was lower than expected, they did point out that 3 areas were up: Healthcare, Mining and Professional and Business Services.

The U.S. Healthcare sector has seen consistent job growth during both good and bad employment times.  Over the past 120 days, recruiting agencies and employers placed more than 75,000 new job ads for Occupational Therapists.  Representing the highest growth of any field within the Healthcare sector at 103%, this rapid increase in hiring demand is calling more attention to the already existing talent shortage at US healthcare organizations.

Hiring Demand for Occupational Therapists over the Past 4 Years

Hiring Demand for Occupational Therapists over the Past 4 Years

Source: WANTED Analytics

While some industries may be able to experience this kind of year-over-year growth and not result in hiring challenges, the healthcare industry is seeing a more noticeable shortage in the number of candidates for open positions. Current estimates show there are approximately 83,000 Occupational Therapists in the US, meaning there are 1.1 candidates for every new job posted over the past 120 days, according to the Hiring ScaleTM.  Since job growth in this field has shown no indication of slowing down, corporate recruiters and staffing agencies are finding themselves in the middle of a talent crisis and recruiting battle.

Some geographical areas will experience recruitment conditions that vary from the national average. The area with the best hiring condition is Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Here, the number of new jobs ads is relatively low and they should expect to see 16 candidates for every position advertised over the past 120 days. It will be relatively easier for recruiters to fill positions in this location than for many of their US counterparts.  However, Occupational Therapists seeking employment in Ann Arbor may find more competition for openings and have more difficulties in finding a new job.

Organizations Currently Hiring Occupational Therapists in Ann Arbor, MI

Organizations Currently Hiring Occupational Therapists in Ann Arbor, MI

Source: WANTED Analytics

On the other hand, Lakeland, Florida currently sits in the one of the worst conditions across the U.S. for recruiting Occupational Therapists.  Here, organizations have placed 126 job ads over the past 120 days, but their talent pool consists of just 80 candidates.  Since there are not enough qualified Occupational Therapists in the local area, recruiters will likely need to advertise jobs for longer periods and invest more time in sourcing for openings.

Candidate Supply of Occupational Therapists in Lakeland, FL

Occupational Therapist Candidate Supply in Lakeland, FL

Source: WANTED Analytics

An alternative for healthcare organizations in this area is to recruit from nearby Tampa, Florida. In Tampa, there is a much larger talent pool of 1,240 Occupational Therapists, and being just 45 minutes away, candidates that aren’t able to find employment within Tampa may be willing to commute to Lakeland.

Hiring Scales for Occupational Therapists in Lakeland, FL and Tampa, FL

Hiring Scales for Occupational Therapists in Lakeland and Tampa, FL

Source: WANTED Analytics


Finance, Health Care, IT Stocks Lose Momentum as Hiring Slows

By Charles Thibault on February 2, 2010 in Business/Finance, Computer/Math/IT, Finance - XLF, Health Care, Health Care - XLV, Information Technology - XLK, S&P 500 - SPY.

Several stock market industry segments have taken hits over the past two or three weeks as the labor market situation deteriorated slightly during the second half of January.

Health Care stocks are down 2.9% over the last two weeks (XLV); Information Technologies stocks are down 9.5% over the last three weeks (XLK); and Finance stocks are down 7% over the last three weeks (XLF). The 4-week moving average of new unemployment insurance claims has gone up two weeks in a row.

Hiring in these three sectors – Finance, Health Care, and Information Technologies  – has slowed in the past two weeks too, falling off the positive trend they started in September. What's worse, year-over-year hiring improvements have swung from positive to negative in these sectors.

The following analysis confirms a great Q4 in terms of GDP growth (+5.7% annualized), but also suggests that growth rates are slowing.

Let's first take a second to make sure we're not presenting conflicting information about the labor market situation, particularly compared to the Conference Board's Help Wanted Online series which uses the "same" data as we present here (HWOL). That series uses a "mid-month to mid-month" time-frame in order to match the BLS's sampling framework which measures national employment on the 14th day of each month. In early January, we did see some positive labor market signals.  However, national Hiring Demand fell by 3.7% two weeks ago (after the HWOL sampling period closed). Since January 19th, the S&P 500 index has lost 4.3% too. This is after the S&P 500 gained 3.6% during the first couple of weeks of January on positive December UI claims data.

The following table compares year-over-year changes in sector Hiring Demand (the number of new online job ads) and weekly returns of sector Exchange Traded Fund (ETF). Sector ETFs are tradable securities which mimic the composition and returns of the different sector indices developed by Standard & Poor's. Sector indices are sub-components of the S&P 500.

Source: WANTED Analytics, Google Finance

Read more »

S&P 500 Healthcare Jobs Growing 0.8%

By Charles Thibault on November 24, 2009 in Health Care - XLV.

Hiring Demand in the S&P 500 Healthcare sector has been growing at 0.8% a month on average since the bull market started in March. This is twice as fast as National Hiring Demand growth for "Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations", the largest occupational group of healthcare workers tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The XLV 'exchange traded fund' (ETF) which mimics the performance of the S&P500 Healthcare Sector Index has grown at an impressive 2.8% a month since March as well.

SectorOCT 2005 to DEC 2007
26 months		JAN 2008 to FEB 2009MARCH 2009 to NOV 2009
Occupation 290000
Healthcare Practitioners and Technical		2.4%-2.1%0.4%
Occupation 310000
Healthcare Support		2.1%-1.4%2.1%
S&P 500 Healthcare Companies
Hiring Demand Indicators		2.4%-1.9%0.8%
S&P 500 Healtchcare
Exchange Traded Fund XLV		  0.6%-2.1%2.8%

It seems, however, that the XLV ETF is only "catching up" to where it should have been. The healthcare sector is one of the only sectors to have resisted the recession, and the performance of publicly traded healthcare companies should not have been so heavily discounted.

Source: WANTED Analytics

Source: WANTED Analytics

The correlation coefficient between the two has been 0.63 over the past 4 years, indicating a structural relationship between the level of XLV Hiring Demand (number of new online job ads posted by the companies comprising the XLV index) and XLV ETF returns. In fact, a regression equation indicates that for every 1% increase in XLV Hiring Demand, the XLV ETF grows by 1% as well.

WANTED: Analytics

WANTED: Analytics

S&P 500 Healthcare (XLV) – Inflection Point too Soon?

By Charles Thibault on July 6, 2009 in Health Care - XLV.

Since reporting an uptick in Hiring Demand by the Health Care sector of the S&P 500, year-over-year returns in the S&P 500 Health Care Index (NYSE:XLV) have improved in relative terms, even as Hiring Demand continues its overall downward trend.

On June 19th, 2009, the yearly return on the health care sector Index was -16.7%.  This week (June 30), the Index is down only 13.6% compared to the same date last year, the best performance since October 11, 2008.   Since March 5th, the S&P 500 Health Care Index is up 22%.

Source: WANTED Analytics

Hiring Demand has slipped after the spike experienced in mid-May. Year-over-year changes in Hiring Demand (based on the 4-week rolling summation of Unique New Ads) reached a peak of -19.7% on May 15, 2009.  However, it slipped back down to -50.0% two weeks ago, and -45.4% last week.  Despite improvement in the Index, overall Hiring Demand is still trending downward.

Read more »

Upturn in Hiring Demand for S&P 500 Health Care Index Companies (Updated)

By Juli Morris and Charles Thibault on May 15, 2009 in Health Care - XLV.

Chart

Click chart to view full size

In the chart to the left, Hiring Demand(the blue line in the chart) for companies comprising the The S&P 500 Health Care Index has moved upward recently, according to the latest WANTED Hiring Demand data.

For the week ended May 2, year-over-year change in Hiring Demand based on online job ads improved from -39 percent the prior week to -29 percent (based on the count of Available Ads). For the same period, yearly returns for the Index were up two percentage points, year-over-year, from the prior week, ending at -26 percent. Read more »

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