Nursing homes job losses have mounted at more than triple the rate of loss in hospitals and physicians’ offices, according to new research that looked at labor rates from 2016 to 2022.
A JAMA Network research letter, led by Thuy Nguyen, assistant professor of health management and policy at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, underscored the challenges skilled nursing providers have faced in filling vacancies, even as the federal government remains focused on adding new positions.
Nguyan found that employment in skilled nursing facilities was declining 0.2% per quarter in the prepandemic era from 1.7 million to 1.6 million workers, but the decline accelerated during the pandemic by 1.1% per quarter, down to 1.4 million workers.
“Staffing in SNFs had already declined before the pandemic and further declines after the pandemic are concerning,” the researchers wrote in the letter published on JAMA Network Thursday. “The differential employment trends across healthcare subsectors may be driven by worker concerns of infectious disease threats, modest wage levels, and high turnover rates among many long-term care occupations.”
Overall, the research found that employment at nursing homes was down by 10.5% compared to pre-pandemic levels while hospitals were down 3.3% and physician offices were down 1.6%.
In an interview posted to the University of Michigan’s website, Nguyen said that the research could help inform public policy since there are few studies examining the broader healthcare workforce.
“The findings of our research can help to define the scale of the challenge faced by policymakers,” Nguyen said. “These declines in SNF employment levels are likely multifaceted in nature, and the Biden administration’s [staffing] proposal alone is unlikely to fully address the myriad of reasons for declining employment in this healthcare subsector.”
The other researchers involved in the letter, which is titled “Changes in Employment in the US Health Care Workforce, 2016-2022,” are Christopher Whaley of Brown University, Kosali Simon of Indiana University, and Jonathan Cantor of RAND Corp. They analyzed national labor statistics from the US Census Bureau.
