Healthcare industry hiring at a steady clip

Recession? What recession? Employment in the U.S. healthcare sector increased by approximately 8,000 jobs in May, and healthcare has added 20,000 new positions per month over the last year.

According to the latest jobs report from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the biggest healthcare job gains were in ambulatory care, where 8,700 jobs were added in May. Of the new ambulatory care jobs, 2,500 were in physician offices and 1,600 were in home healthcare services.

Hospitals actually lost 3,300 jobs in May, while nursing and residential care facilities added approximately 2,600 jobs.

Healthcare employment has increased by an average of 20,000 per month over the past year, making the industry somewhat of an anomaly during the recession.

Overall, total non-farm payroll employment increased by 431,000 in May and the national unemployment rate decreased slightly to 9.7 percent. The number of unemployed dipped marginally to 15 million.

While the national data was improved, most of the job increases last month came from the hiring of 411,000 temporary employees to work on the 2010 Census.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 or more weeks) rose slightly, reaching 6.8 million. The long-term unemployed currently make up about 46 percent of unemployed persons.