Online advertised vacancies for healthcare practitioners, technical occupations and support personnel fell in February, according to a report released this week.
The Conference Board's latest "Help Wanted OnLine Data Series" reveals that online vacancies for healthcare practitioners and technical occupations experienced the largest decline of any category in February, dropping 30,300 to 537,000. The organization said the decline reflects drops in demand for occupational and physical therapists and general internists.
Labor demand for healthcare support occupations also fell in February, with job vacancies dropping 8,600 to 110,700. The report reveals that demand for healthcare support workers has remained relatively steady throughout the recession, although the number of unemployed seeking work in this field has remained relatively high.
In January, the last month for which unemployment data is available, there were 2.3 unemployed for every advertised vacancy in healthcare support.
Because healthcare is a broad field, the relative tightness of the labor market varies substantially from the higher-paying practitioner and technical jobs to the lower-paying support occupations.
In January, advertised vacancies for healthcare practitioners or technical occupations outnumbered the unemployed looking for work in the field by more than 3-to-1, and the average wage in these occupations is $32.64 an hour. In sharp contrast, the average wage for healthcare support occupations is $12.66 an hour and there were more than two unemployed looking for work in the field for every advertised vacancy.
The "Help Wanted Online Data Series" measures the number of new, first-time online jobs and jobs reposted from the previous month on more than 1,200 major Internet job boards and smaller job boards that serve niche markets and smaller geographic areas.