Despite the New York’s perpetually high unemployment rate, the state’s “low-wage” industries, including the home health sector, have seen a net increase of 194,304 job gains since 2008 , according to the Fiscal Policy Institute’s (FPI) report, The State of Working New York 2012: Disappointingly Weak Recovery.
The low-wage industry is made up of jobs that pay less than $45,000 annually, and of the industry’s job gains since 2008, positions in the home health care sector account for 15%, according to FPI. The home health care industry, with a net gain of 31,000 jobs since 2008, ranks only behind restaurants and educational services other than colleges in number of jobs gained.
Increases in New York home health care job opportunities closely mirrors the national trend for home health employment. Nationally, the number of home health care employees has shown significant growth over the past 20 years, and according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010’s measure of 1.9 million home care workers is expected to see a 69% increase by 2020.
While jobs in the New York home health care industry are on the rise, the number of middle and high wage jobs are declining. The state has seen an overall loss of 144,000 middle wage and 29,000 high wage jobs since July 2008. The state-wide unemployment rate has hovered at or above 8% for the past three and a half years, making for the longest period unemployment has been this high since the mid-1970s.
The report also cites recovery from the most recent recession as the slowest on record since the 1930s.
Written by Erin Hegarty
Companies featured in this article:
