We didn’t have to read the new jobs report from Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers to know that health care’s going to add a lot of jobs over the next several years. But we were interested in the report’s finding that the biggest job growth of any category in the economy would come not for doctors, nurses, or nursing home workers, but for a broadly defined group called “other medical services and dentists.” The report defines that group as “a broad category including the ever-expanding home health care, outpatient care, and medical and diagnostic laboratories subsectors,” and projects more than 2 million new jobs per year

for the group, on average, between 2008 and 2016. A separate projection looks at the growth of health-related jobs versus all other occupations between 2000 and 2016. The finding: 12% growth for “other occupations”; 35% growth for “health practitioners”; and 48% growth for “health care support.” Health care support includes physical therapists, physical therapist assistants, medical social workers and home health care aides, the report says. The projections are based on current trends and don’t account for any changes that may come from the Washington health-reform debate, by the way.

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Health Care Job Growth: Not Just Doctors and Nurses