News

October 15, 2015

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

The health care employment sector continues to grow statewide, according to the University at Albany’s 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:

  • 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:
  • Clinical laboratory technologists and technicians (hospitals)
  • Experienced registered nurses (nursing homes)
  • Occupational therapists and  speech-language pathologists (home care) and
  • 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.