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Prognosis for health care jobs: Excellent

By Stephanie Armour and Julie Appleby, USA TODAY

As a physician assistant, Patrick Jenkins' days are rarely dull. He harvests veins from the leg during cardiac surgery, takes care of patients after surgery and makes daily hospital rounds.

It's a profession he enjoys not only because it's interesting, but also because its future seems secure.

"I get more out of helping patients than a mere job," says Jenkins, 48, of Evans, Ga., with the Medical College of Georgia Health System.

"(Physician assistants) are caring people because they spend a lot of time with the patients. They are highly trained and motivated. And it's a hot job."

While jobs in manufacturing or high-tech rise and fall with the fortunes of the economy, an aging population and medical advances mean health care positions are among the fastest-growing jobs.

How fast? Eight of the 20 fastest-growing occupations are in health care. More new hourly and salaried jobs — about 19%, or 3.6 million — created between 2004 and 2014 will be in health care than in any other industry, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Among the jobs with the fastest growth: home health aides, medical assistants, physician assistants, physical therapist assistants, dental hygienists, and personal and home care aides.

"I'm seeing jobs evolve even as we speak," says F. Nicholas Jacobs, CEO of Windber Medical Center and Windber Research Institute in Windber, Pa. "As baby boomers become baby geezers, we'll need more help, especially with new medical advances."

Spending on health care is rising faster than inflation and is projected to climb from its current 16% of gross domestic product to 20% within a decade, according to government figures released last month. More spending means more jobs and, perhaps, better pay and benefits.

High demand for nurses

Hiring opportunities for registered nurses are expected to grow 27% or more between 2004 and 2014. The growth is being driven in part by rising numbers of nurses who are retiring and creating vacancies. Rapid growth is expected in hospital outpatient facilities, such as those providing same-day surgery, rehabilitation and chemotherapy, according to the Department of Labor.

"The biggest quantity demand we're seeing right now is in nursing," says Susan Nowakowski, CEO and president of AMN health care, an international staffing agency based in San Diego. "We can't meet that rising demand because nurses are in such tight supply."

Registered nurses constitute the largest health care occupation, with 2.4 million jobs, and about three out of five jobs are in hospitals. The median annual earnings for registered nurses was $52,330 in May 2004.

Demand for pharmacists is also expected to grow rapidly as current pharmacists retire, prescription drug use increases as the population ages, and medical advances produce new medications. Median annual wage and salary earnings of pharmacists in May 2004 were $84,900.

Health care jobs are found throughout the country, but they are concentrated in such large states as California, New York, Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania.

Ripple effects

The demand for employees in health care fields is also expected to have ripple effects in other parts of the industry. Among the changes:

New education and preparation programs. The need for more health care workers means greater demand for specialized training. Some will involve more high-tech skills needed to keep up with rapid medical advances, such as technicians who can operate newer-generation MRI machines.

The Department of Labor projects that emergency management will be one of the fastest-growing fields through 2012.

In response, the Adelphi University School of Nursing in Garden City, N.Y., has designed a master's degree program in emergency nursing and disaster management. The course focuses on disaster management and being an effective leader to prepare for, respond to and evaluate toxins.

"This is very, very exciting," says Connie Cincotta-Kraft, 44, in New York, an emergency nurse who is pursuing her master's at Adelphi. "There's going to be a huge need for experts in the field that can do training and consulting."

But health care jobs also present opportunities for employees without specialized training. More than 50% of workers in nursing and residential care centers have a high school diploma or less, as do a quarter of workers in hospitals.

Rising pay and robust benefits. Job candidates in health care are expected to see rising pay as demand for workers prompts employers to engage in a tug of war over talent. Already, the average earnings of non-supervisory workers in most health care segments is higher than the average for all private industry: The average weekly earnings of employees in private industry is $528.56 a week, compared with $572.83 for health care workers.

Jane Gould, president and CEO of Visiting Nurse Regional Health Care System in New York, says that retirement and turnover have helped spur a shortage of nurses. Benefits already include health insurance with no premiums for singles, dental coverage, life insurance, disability, an employee assistance program and a pension, as well as the ability to set individual work hours.

"We've been very aggressive about recruiting," Gould says. "In order to compete for a talented pool of nurses, you pay the price. ... You'll continue to see that salaries will go up."

But not all the fast-growing jobs are high paying. Three of the top 10 fastest-growing are in lower-paying segments of the industry, such as home health aides, personal care aides and medical office assistants.

Medical assistants, who help with clerical and other work in physician offices, had median annual earnings of $24,610 in 2004, the Labor Department says.

Home health aides, who help take care of elderly and disabled people in their own homes, have median hourly earnings of $8.81. Personal health aides, who provide mainly housekeeping help, have median hourly earnings of $8.12.

Stepped-up recruiting. Health care providers are expected to boost recruiting efforts as employers fight for available talent. More might do their own in-house training or cover ongoing education, and they might turn increasingly to outside recruiters to find good hires.

Helga Long, a managing partner at Christian & Timbers, an executive search firm, is already seeing the heightened war for health care professionals, such as scientists and researchers who work for pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies.