The healthcare industry's workforce will have to increase 30% by 2020 in order to keep pace with health services demand, regardless of whether Obamacare is implemented. A new report from Georgetown's Center On Education And The Workforce claims that the number of healthcare jobs will expand by three million positions over the next decade, well short of the anticipated 5.6 million job vacancies. But there's a catch - at the same time that demand for qualified workers is increasing, so are the educational requirements for these jobs. As the report notes:
"The demand for postsecondary education and training in healthcare, already high, will continue to edge upward. In 2010, it was 81%; by 2020, it will rise slightly to 82%. For professional and technical occupations, however, that number rises to 94%.
A bachelor’s degree will be required for 24% of all healthcare jobs, up from 21% in 2010. This high demand for postsecondary talent in healthcare is second only to STEM and education occupations."
The nursing workforce is primed to grow the fastest of all healthcare occupations, expanding by 26% by 2020. This growth is still less than the demand for nursing services, creating a shortfall of 800 000 positions. Educational requirements for nursing are also getting tighter, with 40% of hospital staff nurses (which represent over half the registered nurse workforce) now holding bachelor's degrees and 80% of all nurses having at least associate-level education.
Aside from nursing, the demand for healthcare support workers such as home health aides and substance abuse counselors will also increase substantially. And therein lies the catch. Nurses and other healthcare professional are well compensated, but 70% of healthcare support workers earn less than $30 000 and 72% haven't graduated college. While, according to Georgetown's report, there currently exists a healthcare premium for these workers when compared to the wages of non-healthcare jobs they could hold (i.e., being a home health aide pays better than being a fast food drive-thru worker), this premium will evaporate as the requirements for advanced education for healthcare support jobs will increase. By 2020, 54% of these job will require at least some post-secondary education. $30 000 doesn't go far when you graduate with $25 250 in student loan debt.
And women will be the ones to bear the brunt of this qualifications-earning gap, as 90% of healthcare support workers are women. Unfortunately, things don't look much brighter on the professional side. Female nurses outnumber male ones 12 to 1, but men outearn women. And female doctors earn less than male doctors for the same work.
So, yes, the healthcare industry is hiring, but the financial and educational reality of these in-demand jobs might turn out to be a bitter pill for potential workers to swallow.
