PHOENIX — Many who've found themselves unemployed at some point during this outbreak may have thought about a career change.
Well the healthcare industry is expected to add more than a million jobs by 2028. As part of The Rebound Arizona we look into how people can get back to work in a field that's still growing.
For years Arizona has been at the center of an economic boom but that changed when COVID-19 hit.
Misty Frost is the CEO of Carrus, an online healthcare training provider. Carrus is one of dozens of sites that have been working to fill gaps in the healthcare industry for years.
Frost says, "We were already seeing a massive shortage of people entering healthcare. Healthcare systems couldn't hire people fast enough."
And the shortage will be more apparent after the pandemic. According to Frost, "People have put off surgeries. They've put off going to the doctor. They've put off a lot of stuff waiting for this to be over. And once people can no longer put that off-not only is the healthcare system going to have to recover from covid but they're going to have to recover with all of this massive backlog of demand."
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsemployment of healthcare jobs is projected to grow 14% from 2018 to 2028. That's a much faster than the average for all other jobs. It's projected to add roughly 1.9 million new positions.
"We anticipate that jobs in healthcare will actually start to increase rather exponentially in the next few months," Frost predicts.
The hospitality and service industries have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. Frost says restaurant experience makes for a great candidate.
"One of the biggest challenges in healthcare for people who are just getting into it as patient relations. So being able to work with someone who's in pain or struggling and if you've been in the service industry then you've been dealing with the public so you have probably some pretty good skills in that arena," she adds.
Training can take anywhere from six months to a year. And if you get queezy just thinking about blood, she says there are other options like billing or coding and more.
"There are a lot of jobs usually that have tech in them. For example pharmacy tech. Where are you are interfacing with patients you are interfacing with the public but you are doing it dispensing drugs right? You're not dealing with farm. There's radiology tech," she concludes.
Those interested can visit Career Step's website for a list of the programs available through Carrus.
And for more places hiring in other fields-visit The Rebound Arizona on ABC15.com
