Health care is the 'engine' of the job market — and that's risky for the economy

Health-care job growth is propping up the labor market amid weakness in many other industries, a dynamic that labor economists say is a worrying sign for jobseekers and the U.S. economy.Employers in the health care and social services sector have added 695,000 jobs in 2025 through November, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Meanwhile, U.S. employers in total have added 610,000 jobs over the same period. In other words, without health care, the economy would have lost about 85,000 jobs.Health care "remains the engine of jobs growth for the U.S," Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor, a career site, wrote in an analysis Tuesday."The job market outside of health care does look like it's freezing up," Zhao said in an interview. "It's more risky for the economy to only be standing on one leg, instead of having more support from different industries," he said. That strength in health care is underpinned by a massive long-term demographic shift in the U.S. as baby boomers hurtle into their retirement years, economists said. Older adults tend to spend more on health care, driving up demand for health services — and a need for more workers to meet that demand, they said. Baby boomers are also a "very wealthy generation," and their wealth has increased in recent years amid a surge in asset values, said Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab. Demand for health care is correlated with income, she said. The health care and social assistance sector added about 129,000 jobs in October and November, the BLS reported Tuesday. The U.S. economy as a whole lost 41,000 jobs overall.The industry has added jobs in every month since January 2022, according to the BLS. That's not true of other major sectors, including mining and logging, construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, utilities, information, financial activities, professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and government. "The U.S. economy is in a jobs recession," Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote in a note Tuesday. The "bulk" of jobs added over the past six months have been in health care, "an industry that is almost always hiring due to America's aging population," Long wrote. "Almost all other sectors are flatlining or laying workers off right now."The broad labor market has cooled as businesses have grappled with relatively high interest rates and "extreme economic uncertainty" around tariff policy and impact, Zhao said. The government workforce has also come under pressure from hiring freezes and cuts to the federal workforce implemented by the Trump administration, he said. That said, consumer spending has proven resilient, likely providing a backstop to the job market, Zhao said.Some other industries have added jobs on a net basis in 2025, too. Leisure and hospitality, a sector that includes restaurants and hotels, has added 115,000 jobs through November, and construction has added 43,000, for example. But the list of industries consistently losing jobs is longer than that of those consistently adding — "which is really just health care," Zhao said.That puts job seekers in a difficult position, Ullrich said. Doctors, physical therapists, dentists and many others in the medical field need related degrees, training and/or certifications, which can be expensive and time-consuming to obtain — meaning it's not necessarily easy to switch careers, she said. "I can't just snap my fingers and decide I want to be a doctor," she said. However, those in the health field have relative job security, economists said. And health jobs can extend beyond patient care, they said. For example, hospitals generally employ internal auditors, economists and information technology workers to help support operations, they said. Health spending tends to be insulated from economic downturns, a dynamic that could help prop up the labor market and economy if the job market were to cool further, economists said. However, demand for health care — and, by extension, job growth in the sector — could come under pressure as a result of budget cuts enacted by Republican lawmakers, economists said. For example, it appears that enhanced premium subsidies for consumers who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace will expire at year's end, after Senate Republicans voted against Democrats' plan to extend the subsidies for three years.

Four House Republicans broke ranks with party leaders on Wednesday to side with Democrats and force a vote on an extension; however, that vote is likely to take place in January. Nearly 5 million people will lose their insurance coverage next year if they expire, according to the Urban Institute.Additionally, the "big beautiful bill" Republicans passed in July made cuts to Medicaid that kick in over a number of years. Starting in January 2026, the law eliminates the enhanced federal funding for states that choose to expand Medicaid for the first time, for example, according to the Urban Institute."And as health-care funding cuts start to hit, that could slow jobs growth in the industry," Zhao said. That dynamic would pressure the economy unless job growth increased in other sectors."It puts you in a precarious spot if you're over-reliant on one sector of the economy," Ullrich said. "Which we are right now."Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inboxGet this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.© 2025 Versant Media, LLC.

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