The COVID-19 pandemic caused drastic changes in healthcare utilization, delivery, and clinical organization finance, say Nguyen, et al. (2025) who add that initial research showed that healthcare employment did not fully recover by 2022’s end, with trends varying by setting. Employment in physician offices reached full recovery, while long-term care facility staffing was 10.5% below pre-pandemic levels in 2020-2022. The intensive behavioral health services workforce was slow to recover, despite increased demand for these services during the pandemic. Although the COVID-19 public health emergency expired in May 2023, the pandemic’s full impact on the healthcare workforce and its subsectors remains unclear.

This study used industry- and national-level employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2016-2024 Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages to assess healthcare employment changes relative to changes in non–healthcare sectors from 2016 to 2024. Analyses also evaluated key healthcare subsectors, including physician offices, hospitals, skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), office-based behavioral health practitioners, and intensive behavioral health facilities.

Between quarter 4 of 2019 and quarter 2 of 2020, healthcare employment decreased by 6.9% relative to predicted levels in the absence of the pandemic, from 22,456,615 to 21,058,286 jobs. Subsequently, aggregated healthcare employment recovered, increasing to 24,401,427 jobs in quarter 3 of 2024 (0.2% below predicted levels). In contrast, non–health care employment totaled 127, 548, 688 jobs in quarter 4 of 2019, with a larger decline in quarter 2 of 2020 (11.4% below predicted levels). Non–healthcare employment recovered more slowly than healthcare employment in quarter 3 of 2024 (2.9% below predicted levels).

Recovery patterns varied by healthcare subsectors, with enduring declines in employment in SNFs, hospitals, and intensive behavioral health facilities compared with quicker recoveries among offices of physicians and large increases in employees of office-based behavioral health practitioners. In quarter 2 of 2020, employment in health care subsectors decreased by between 3.4% and 7.6% (in hospitals and SNFs, respectively). In quarter 3 of 2024, the differences in observed vs predicted levels were 0.7% for hospitals, −0.1% for SNFs, 1.2% for offices of physicians, −0.8% for intensive behavioral health facilities, and 40.6% for office-based behavioral health practitioners. Employment levels for office-based behavioral health practitioners grew by 84%, from 183 339 in quarter 4 of 2019 to 337 639 in quarter 3 of 2024.

Reference: Nguyen T, et al. Health Care Workforce Recovery After the End of the COVID-19 Emergency. JAMA. Published online June 5, 2025. doi:10.1001/jama.2025.8588