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BLOOMINGTON, Indiana (Inside INdiana Business) – A new study by the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington indicates that Indiana’s healthcare sector not only tends to remain stable for a economic downturn, but often increases employment levels. The researchers examined the historical relationship between local economic conditions and employment in the health care sector during past recessions.
Study co-author Professor Kosali Simon says Indiana’s healthcare industry is particularly stable when it comes to economic turmoil. Simon found that when counties experience more severe economic downturns, healthcare employment appears to increase.
“Understanding how the health sector responds to economic conditions is important for policymakers seeking to ensure an adequate supply of health workers, as well as for those who direct displaced workers to new jobs,” said Simon. “Our study provides a backdrop to investigate the economic impact of COVID-19 on this sector in relation to past economic downturns. “
The study examined hiring practices from 2005 to 2017 and focused on four subsets: nursing facilities, home care services, physician offices, and general medical and nursing hospitals. surgery.
Simon says the state of the local economy does not appear to have a significant effect on the share of the workforce employed by hospitals and doctor’s offices. However, the study found that nursing facilities increase their workforce more robustly when local and national economies are in recession.
“Even during the Great Recession, which saw employment plummet in most sectors, employment in health care remained stable and increased as a proportion of total employment,” Simon said. “This suggests that the health care workforce is systematically different from the US workforce taken as a whole, but the experience of the Great Recession did not necessarily generalize to the most recent recession.”
Simon says the findings can help provide a backdrop as policymakers consider ways to support the health sector during future economic and public health turmoil.
Click here to view the working research paper.
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