Healthcare, nursing jobs increased during past four years in South Florida

A South Florida county has had its share of job losses and reductions in force during the past years that touches nearly all sectors.

But the Miami Herald reports one industry in Miami-Dade County is apart from the others: healthcare.

A reporter was probing employment trends and the digging prompted him to notice the past four years has seen jobs lost in nearly all industries. Fewer people are employed in almost all other industries with the top three industries losing jobs being manufacturing, financial activities and administrative and waste services.

But since August 2007, healthcare has added 13,600 jobs, the Herald reports, citing federal labor statistics.

Roughly 75 percent of those jobs are from hospitals, health clinics and doctors’ offices, such as nursing jobs. The publication attributes the growth to the large amounts of elderly residents attracted to Miami-Dade County. Another driver of the industry is government entitlements that prevent healthcare providers from suffering as a result of economically rough times.

September saw the healthcare industry grow more quickly than other sectors of the economy, according to The Hill reports. Though unemployment persistently remains at around 9 percent, the healthcare industry created about 44,000 jobs last month.