Impact of COVID-19 on Healthcare Labor Market in the United States: Lower Paid Workers Experienced Higher Vulnerability and Slower Recovery

Authors

Neeraj Bhandari, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Kavita Batra, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Soumya Upadhyay, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Christopher Cochran, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-2-2021

Publication Title

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Publisher

MDPI

Volume

18

Issue

8

First page number:

1

Last page number:

17

Abstract

The resilience of the healthcare industry, often considered recession-proof, is being tested by the COVID-19 induced reductions in physical mobility and restrictions on elective and non-emergent medical procedures. We assess early COVID-19 effects on the dynamics of decline and recovery in healthcare labor markets in the United States. Descriptive analyses with monthly cross-sectional data on unemployment rates, employment, labor market entry/exit, and weekly work hours among healthcare workers in each healthcare industry and occupation, using the Current Population Survey from July 2019−2020 were performed. We found that unemployment rates increased dramatically for all healthcare industries, with the strongest early impacts on dentists’ offices (41.3%), outpatient centers (10.5%), physician offices (9.5%), and home health (7.8%). Lower paid workers such as technologists/technicians (10.5%) and healthcare aides (12.6%) were hit hardest and faced persistently high unemployment, while nurses (4%), physicians/surgeons (1.4%), and pharmacists (0.7%) were spared major disruptions. Unique economic vulnerabilities faced by low-income healthcare workers may need to be addressed to avoid serious disruptions from future events similar to COVID-19.

Keywords

COVID-19; Current population survey; Healthcare employment; Labor market

Disciplines

Public Health

File Format

pdf

File Size

2264 KB

Language

English

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Repository Citation

Bhandari, N., Batra, K., Upadhyay, S., Cochran, C. (2021). Impact of COVID-19 on Healthcare Labor Market in the United States: Lower Paid Workers Experienced Higher Vulnerability and Slower Recovery. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(8), 1-17. MDPI.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18083894