According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 84,000 healthcare jobs were added between January and March of 2015. The growth in job demand is due, in large part to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — 90% of Americans reported having healthcare coverage as of April 2015. Data presented in Health eCareers’ Q1 2015 Healthcare Jobs Snapshot show three healthcare positions experiencing tremendous growth: physician/surgeon, physician assistant, and nurse practitioner jobs. Growth was measured by the number of HEC job openings — year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter — indicating these three areas were among the most in-demand healthcare jobs.
We will discuss these three areas of job growth in detail and explore why they are experiencing the most growth year-over-year, as sourced from the HealtheCareers’ Q1 2015 Healthcare Jobs Snapshot quarterly report.
1. Physician/Surgeon Jobs
Q1 2015 showed the greatest percentage of physician and surgeon job postings on Health eCareers — 21,623 jobs: 53% of total postings. 14% of the postings included general family medicine, emergency medicine, and internal medicine jobs. New postings accounted for 46.7% of physician and surgeon jobs on HEC — an 11% increase from Q1 2014. The most growth seen from Q4 2014 to Q1 2015 included: vascular surgery (21%), psychiatry (14%), neurology (9%), dermatology (7%), and hospitalist (7%).
2. Physician Assistant
Demand for physician assistants (PAs) from Q4 2014 to Q1 2015 was up 10% and saw an increase of 27% year-over-year as measured by employer job postings.
The Q1 2015 top 5 PA jobs:
- Family Medicine PA
- Emergency Medicine PA
- General PA
- Orthopedic PA
- Surgery PA
3. Nurse Practitioner
Year-over-year demand for nurse practitioner (NP) jobs was up 18% — 53% of NP jobs were new postings in Q1 2015. Nursing roles (RNs, NPs, and PAs) were the most in-demand non-physician jobs in Q1 2015. Nine of the top ten non-physician roles on the list were filled by nursing jobs.
The Q1 2015 top five NP jobs:
- Family Medicine NP
- Psychiatric/Mental Health NP
- General NP
- Emergency NP
- Urgent Care NP
RNs, NPs, and PAs — accounted for 31% of the total Health eCareers job postings in Q1 2015 — 21,595 openings.
An increase in healthcare coverage due to the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid expansion, parent plans, and other insurance options has created a significant surge in job growth and demand for physicians/surgeons, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. The top 10 states with the highest number of job postings were Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Florida, Washington, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Georgia. Data were collected from January 1 to March 31, 2015, and consisted of 40,443 healthcare and medical job openings on Health eCareers placed by 5,866 hospitals and healthcare organizations.
