Healthcare all but carrying jobs growth on its back—for better and for worse

If not for healthcare, the U.S. labor market would be starting 2026 on a moribund note.

The January employment situation summary, released Feb. 11 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reflects this likelihood: It shows an American economy leaning heavily on healthcare to put jobseekers to work. 

Healthcare added 82,000 jobs in January, the stats show. Big gains occurred in ambulatory healthcare services (+50,000), hospitals (+18,000), and nursing and residential care facilities (+13,000). 

Meanwhile the healthcare-adjacent arena of social assistance hired 42,000 workers, mostly in individual and family services (+38,000).

Construction was healthcare’s only competition. And even it was no serious challenger, adding a modest 33,000 jobs. 

What’s more, healthcare’s strong showing in January followed a similarly impressive performance in December. 

5 clarifications on healthcare as a healthy job market  

A Wall Street Journal news analysis focusing on the January jobs report serves as a virtual shout-out to healthcare for its contribution to the overall employment economy.

However, it also places the sector’s strength in sobering context. Five illustrative passages from the piece convey the gist.

1. Adding jobs is good news for economic growth, but economists say there is risk in such heavy reliance on one industry if that sector sees a slowdown. Plus, not everyone has the skills or desire to work in healthcare, Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at the jobs website Indeed, tells the WSJ.
    
2. Parts of the healthcare industry have become increasingly reliant on an immigrant workforce. “The U.S. has long offered special visas for highly skilled foreign doctors willing to move to rural America, where the need for medical care is great,” the analysis points out. “A surge of young immigrants and immigrants who arrived as part of resettlement programs filled nursing jobs and home health-aide jobs as demand for those positions continued to rise.”
    
3. Demand for nurses and nurse practitioners is so strong that healthcare providers have to outbid each other. It’s not hard to find hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities that care for the aging population “offering five-figure signing bonuses and generous paid time off,” says Sari Gillen, a Houston-based healthcare recruiter. 
    
4. Healthcare jobs can be labor-intensive and less susceptible to automation than other skilled professions. “Demand for healthcare workers is expected to remain strong as the U.S. population ages,” the newspaper reports, “although changes to Medicare payment rates pose a risk in the short term.”
    
5. The rise of healthcare and construction jobs presents a puzzle in the job market. “Since President Trump has severely restricted immigration and ramped up deportations, who is filling these jobs now?” the WSJ asks. “Immigration raids are starting to take an economic toll on the construction industry, making workers harder to come by and slowing building projects.”

Uncertainty over undocumented healthcare workers 

It’s not hard to imagine something comparable rumbling through healthcare, although neither President Trump nor HHS Secretary Kennedy has made a point of targeting undocumented healthcare workers. 

Their push has been to thwart noncitizens from accessing health services, not healthcare jobs. 

Still, as of last spring, “hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers, including an estimated 30,000 legal immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, are at risk of being deported,” Politico reported last spring. 

That threat has been “worrying providers and patients who rely on [these workers] for everything from nursing and physical therapy to maintenance, janitorial, foodservice and housekeeping work.”