PHOENIX — One area of the Valley’s economy seeing big job growth is the healthcare sector, but even with impressive growth, it may not be enough to meet the needs of the nearly five million residents.
According to the most recent Labor Department data, there are 343,000 healthcare and social services jobs in the Phoenix Metro as of March 2024. This represents a year-over-year increase of 20,000 and well above the per-pandemic high hit in February of 2020. As a job sector, healthcare has more than recovered from COVID-19 with 17% more jobs last month than at the start of the pandemic.
By subsector, ambulatory and outpatient services have the highest number of jobs in the Valley at 170,000. This subsector has also grown the most since COVID-19 with 125% of the jobs last month compared to February of 2020. Hospital systems employ about 73,000 people and they are at 110% of their pre-pandemic employment levels. Nursing and Resident Care Facility jobs make up 44,000 of all healthcare jobs and are barely above the reported number from February 2020.
Healthcare job growth in the state is high compared to other states. Arizona’s 6.9% year-over-year job growth in the past year ranks second in the nation behind Idaho and just above South Carolina. The two other states with the highest healthcare job growth are California and Tennessee.
Despite high growth, analysis of data from the Bureau of Health Workforce shows that, at least in terms of healthcare provider jobs, Arizona is experiencing a shortage. A quarterly report released last month by the bureau shows the state only has 35% of the primary care health providers that would need to be considered not in a shortage period, ranking 41st among the states. Arizona has the same shortage rate for dental health, about 34% of the needs met, but that puts the state in the middle of the pack at 25th. The score and ranking for mental health is significantly lower; only 10% of the state’s population’s needs are met which ranks 49th.
