Healthcare employment continued to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic in June with 358,000 jobs added to the industry and hospital jobs started to increase, according to the latest federal jobs report.
The report released Thursday represents a slight increase from the 315,000 jobs the industry added in May. It showed that hiring in physician and dentist offices continues to recover, and hospitals added 6,000 jobs after declining by 26,000 in May.
Overall, the economy added 4.8 million jobs in June compared to May as the economy continues to try and recover from the pandemic, according to the monthly job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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The entire healthcare industry has been wracked by the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused hospitals to shutter elective procedures vital to their bottom line in order to preserve supplies and capacity for COVID-19 cases.
At the same time, patient volumes to physician and dentist offices completely plummeted.
Dentist offices continued their robust recovery in June by adding 190,000 jobs last month. The increase is slightly below the 244,000 jobs the sector added in May, as practices started to see patients again.
Physician offices though also had a robust increase by adding 80,000 jobs in June, compared with adding 51,000 jobs in May.
While physicians have turned to telehealth to see patients thanks to increased flexibility, it has not been enough to financially recover from the hit to patient volume.
The jobs report was a bright spot for hospitals, several of which have had to furlough or lay off staff after the hit to finances. Hospitals lost 26,000 jobs in May but were a net positive with 6,000.
Hospitals have started to slowly restart elective procedures, but the volume of surgeries hasn’t completely recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
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It remains unclear how long this recovery will continue for hospitals as COVID-19 has spiked in several states along the sunbelt. This has caused hospitals in those states to reexamine how to do elective procedures, with some systems forced to scale back again.
Other parts of the healthcare industry also gained jobs in June, including diagnostic labs with 7,000 and home healthcare services with 17,000.
Meanwhile, nursing homes continue to shed jobs as the industry struggles with the pandemic.
Nursing homes lost 20,000 jobs in June, the report said. However, the dip was less severe than the month before when the sector lost 52,000 jobs.