Nurses – Jobs. Trends. Insight.

Hiring Demand for Nurses Drops

By Juli Morris on July 17, 2009 in Health Care.

Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0

After rebounding in late April and rising through May, Hiring Demand for Nurses has been trending downward again. As the accompanying chart shows, online job ads for Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses and Licensed Vocational Nurses have lost nearly all the gains made in 2009.

Demand for nurses reached its 2009 peak the week of May 31, having gained 13 percent from its low the week of April 19. As of the week of July 5th, Hiring Demand had retreated 8.4 percent from that 2009 peak.

WANTED's Hiring Demand Indicator^TM for the broader health care sector for June was down 17 percent year-over-year, up from a three-year low of 27.5 percent in January 2009. Additional information and analysis on Hiring demand in the health care industry can be found here.

The recently-launched WANTED Supply/Demand Ratios™ measure occupational Hiring Demand in a metro area relative to the size of the local labor market. Cities where the mix of demand and supply exceed the national average are good bets for people looking for work. Our S/D Ratios indicate that the five best locations for Registered Nurses looking for jobs are Las Vegas-Paradise, NV; Cheyenne, WY; Clarksville, TN; Redding, CA; and Austin-Round Rock, TX. For Licensed Practical Nurses and Occupational Nurses, the best locations are Salinas, CA; Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC; Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR; Colorado Springs, CO; and Durham, NC.

Hiring Demand for Physical Therapists Weathering Recession

By Juli Morris on May 18, 2009 in Health Care.

Online job ad data for physical therapists indicates that hiring demand for those health care professionals is holding up comparatively well in the current recession.

Source: WANTED Analytics

Although down 27 percent from the three-year peak in November 2007, hiring demand has a long way to go before it gives up all the growth seen since the end of 2006. The latest data from WANTED Analytics indicates that hiring demand for physical therapists is still up 161 percent from its three-year low.

This is in contrast to current levels of hiring demand for nurses, which we reported as nearing its three-year low last month.

Still, it is too soon to be completely optimistic. Hiring demand for physical therapists has declined nearly 12 percent over the past month, and given that hiring demand for the broader health care industry has been negative since October 2008, it may only be a matter of time before the physical therapists experience a contraction in actual employment.

Hiring Demand for Nurses Nears Three-Year Low

By Juli Morris on April 28, 2009 in Health Care.

Source: WANTED Analytics

As the accompanying chart shows, online job ads for Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses and Licensed Vocational Nurses is nearing a three-year low.

Demand for nurses reached a peak the week of April 13, 2008, with over 413,000 unique job postings. One year later, WANTED's hiring demand data shows just over 213,000 postings, erasing nearly all the gains made from the low point of 194,000 job ads in January '07.

WANTED's Hiring Demand Indicator^TM for the broader health care sector is now down 27% year-over-year. Additional information and analysis on hiring demand in the health care industry can be found here.

The bright spot may fade: WANTED's data suggests health care jobs may soon decline (updated 3/6/09)

By Juli Morris on March 2, 2009 in BLS Nonfarm Employment, Health Care.

Amid the continuing bad news in employment, healthcare has been one sector of the economy that has proven remarkably strong. But recent trends in online job ads suggest the long upward slope of jobs in the industry may not hold.

WANTED has noted a steady decline in the number of new ads year-over-year since the start of the recession. And more interestingly, new job ads as tracked by WANTED have slipped into negative territory.

Click chart to view full size

Our sense is that this drop in actual job ads could soon be reflected in a decline in actual jobs.

But if there is a weakening in the sector, it's not yet appearing in the economy. WANTED forecast a rise of 36,000 jobs in the sector for February.

And when the official numbers were released on March 6, healthcare was, in fact, still adding jobs, albeit slightly fewer than we had forecast. The industry added 30,400 jobs in February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.