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Amid a flat labor market, health services stand out as a bright spot in today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report. But the sector may not still be on the rise for long.
Due to the longest government shutdown in history, the Labor Department’s September data was delayed by six weeks and we’re only now seeing September’s number. And the October Employment Situation news release has been pushed to December 16, at the same time as the November results will be released.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, in the month of September the unemployment rate stayed roughly the same at 4.4 percent, translating to 7.6 million people. It’s a bump from one year prior, when the rate was 4.1 percent, or 6.9 million people.
Total nonfarm payroll employment climbed by 119,000 in September, but remained around the spot it has been since April. Health care accounted for an additional 43,000 jobs, the number it has been adding across the past 12 months. Ambulatory health care services gained 23,000 employees, and hospitals gained 16,000.
According to the Labor Department, from January 2025 to September, the economy added roughly 74,000 private-sector jobs per month. Around 64,000 of those jobs were in health services.
Americans generally put money into healthcare whether or not they’re decreasing their spending in other areas. But recent government changes, like cuts to Medicaid, could threaten the continued rise in the healthcare sector.
President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” will cut $911 billion in Medicaid spending over a decade ending in 2034.
Based on data from the Congressional Budget office, some groups, like the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, estimate that by fiscal 2034, 10 million fewer people will have health insurance due to recent legislation. It may also cause hospitals and nursing homes to hold back from increasing payrolls.
There is also concern that the Labor Department’s data is off this month. Economists at Goldman Sachs pointed out that payroll processor ADP reported that private health-services and education sectors, which they report under one category, have already begun to fall.
But Goldman economists David Mericle and Jessica Rindels said in an August 17 report that the ADP numbers may be exaggerating weak points.
“While the BLS numbers are more consistent with trends in healthcare spending,” they wrote, “employment counts from large healthcare companies and views from healthcare sector analysts suggest that the truth might be somewhere in the middle.”
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Ava Levinson
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