Center for Health Workforce Study: Strong Job Growth in Health Care in New York State 

From 2000 to 2013, health care sector employment in NY rose 20 percent

ALBANY, N.Y. (October 9, 2015) -- The health care employment sector continues to grow statewide, according to the Center for Health Workforce Studies (CHWS) recent report on New York’s workforce, "The Health Care Workforce in New York, 2014: Trends in the Supply and Demand for Health Workers."

Between 2000 and 2013, health care sector employment rose nearly 20 percent while job growth in other employment sectors remained constant.

“Health care employment continues to grow in New York State,” said Robert Martiniano, senior program manager at CHWS, “and is an important economic driver. However, we see a maldistribution of health care providers, particularly in primary care, which limits access to basic health services for many New Yorkers.”

Other important findings from this report include:

Between 2000 and 2013, health care sector employment rose nearly 20 percent.

• While hospitals continue to employ the largest share of health sector workers in the state, jobs in home health care and ambulatory care grew the fastest between 2000 and 2013.

• The majority of hospitals and health centers report plans to expand ambulatory services.
• Health care providers report a variety of workforce recruitment and retention difficulties, Among the most difficult recruitment challenges were:
o Clinical laboratory technologists and technicians (hospitals)
o Experienced registered nurses (nursing homes)
o Occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists (home care) and
o Psychiatric nurse practitioners (NPs) and , psychiatrists (health centers)
• Health reform initiatives, particularly the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program, are fueling growing demand for care coordination services to reduce the number of inappropriate emergency department and hospital admissions.

CHWS Director Jean Moore noted, “This report draws data from a variety of sources to document New York State’s health workforce. While such research can help us to broadly understand the health workforce, it still lacks the specificity needed to describe health workforce issues at the local level. The availability of more detailed workforce data can help us to better describe local-level supply and distribution, and to identify areas of need.”

The full report can be found on the CHWS website at http://chws.albany.edu.

About the Center for Health Work Workforce Studies
Established in 1996, CHWS is a not-for-profit research organization, based at the School of Public Health, University at Albany. The mission of CHWS is to provide timely, accurate data and conduct policy relevant research about the health workforce. The research conducted by CHWS supports and promotes health workforce planning and policymaking at local, regional, state, and national levels. Today, CHWS is a national leader in the field of health workforce studies, and the only one uniquely focused on the oral health workforce.

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