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February marked another strong month in healthcare despite employment growth being weaker but more stable than expected.
Last month, healthcare and social assistance guided the path to job creation, adding 63,100 jobs, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It marked the fifth month when the category saw its biggest profit.
Like some economists, if you include private education in your group, that figure will grow to 73,000 jobs.
While this is another strong performance for healthcare, Ziplet Kleiter Julia Pollack noted that this level of profit has been essentially happening over the past few years.
“Part of that is catching up during the pandemic, where profit margins for many hospitals were negative due to cancellation of elective procedures,” he said in an interview with CNBC. “They would not have hired otherwise, so now they’re back to normal and hired pretty quickly.”
Evolving demographic trends are another factor in play, Pollak said. She noted that the so-called Peak 65 zone – a multi-year period underway where more Americans are set to turn 65 than ever before.
“Some of that catches up, and some of it is like the huge demographic changes we are undergoing,” Pollack continued.
Financial activities and construction were next in terms of employment growth. These two categories added 21,000 and 19,000 positions, respectively.
The government also saw growth of 11,000 positions that month. That said, BLS has revealed that federal employment has dropped by 10,000 within the sector. That comes in President Donald Trump and the so-called Bureau of Government Efficiency for Federal Expenditure and Labor Levels, or Doge’s efforts.
“We’ll get much less job opportunities (and) future reports will see that unemployment will be much greater,” Pollak said, adding that the 10,000 cut probably reflects some of the fired probation employees. “This was just in the early days.”
As for weak spots, there were two groups where retail, leisure and hospitality, saw unemployment in February. Retail lost 6,300 jobs and leisure and hospitality lost 16,000.
