The past year has taught us that healthcare isn’t really a “recession-proof” industry, even though it may have fared better than many other areas of the economy.

But in the 2009 labor market, the demand for health professionals was much stronger than other sectors. According to the data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, healthcare has added over 600,000 jobs since the start of the recession.

What do these numbers tell us about healthcare hiring, and the future of the healthcare job market?

I recently spoke with David Cherner, managing partner at Health Workforce Solutions, a firm that analyzes local market healthcare workforce expansion and contraction. Cherner told me that very few observers of the healthcare labor market – and an equally small number of healthcare executives – foresaw the impact of the downturn in 2009.

“Once the recession took hold, we did see an impact on hiring, particularly of nurses,” Cherner said. “We saw lots of older nurses returning to the workforce as spouses lost jobs and retirement accounts took losses.”

Those more experienced nurses often grabbed jobs that would have gone to new graduates of nursing schools.
“It was a difficult year for new graduates generally, particularly nursing grads,” Cherner said. “Most of the larger health systems cut back on hiring.”

An interesting byproduct of the hiring cutbacks of which Cherner spoke is that some large health systems actually performed better financially in the last quarter of 2009 than they had at the start of the year. Many institutional projects that were put on hold in the first quarter were resurrected by the end of the year – which also means more hiring in the near future.

Indeed, the Cleveland Clinic has announced that it will add 1,800 new jobs in 2010, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center may hire somewhere between 6,000-8,000 employees next year.

While struggling, healthcare still remains the most vibrant sector of the U.S. economy as we enter 2010, Cherner said. And that will likely lead to new jobs.

“We’re much more bullish in regard to near-term demand for healthcare workers than we were a quarter or two ago – especially in certain markets,” he told me.

Healthcare hiring will probably accelerate fastest in the South and Southeast, especially in states like Texas, where healthcare institutions weren’t hit as hard by recession. In contrast, healthcare job growth will come slower in the Northeast.

Health Workforce Solutions predicts that many institutions will have more liberal budgets for hiring nurses in 2010, although Cherner doesn’t think the older nurses who re-entered the workforce last year will give up their jobs so quickly.

The allied health professions should also enjoy job growth in 2010. Pharmacy technicians, imaging professionals and laboratory personnel will be in high demand, Cherner said, as significant shortages exist in all those fields.
As for non-clinical healthcare jobs, Cherner said that employees who aid healthcare facilities in managing the revenue cycle should find a welcoming labor market, particularly late in 2010 and into 2011.

And what about physicians?

“2009 was not really a difficult year for physician employment,” Cherner said. “There was significant hiring for primary care physicians and we’ll see more of that in 2010, as hospitals go after local physicians. Clinical integration is going to be a big issue for hospital human resources as a result of healthcare reform.”