Changes in the Healthcare Job Market and Its Effect on Recruitment;For a very long time, jobs in the healthcare system have always got considered among the most stable ones because of the well-paying salary and its top position on the spectrum of job sati

Changes in the Healthcare Job Market and Its Effect on Recruitment

For a very long time, jobs in the healthcare system have always got considered among the most stable ones because of the well-paying salary and its top position on the spectrum of job satisfaction. However, with the changes in the industry that have been happening at a fast rate, budgets have become tighter, and the use of technology has been advanced together with a rising number of the aging population. Additionally, health care reforms, hospital debts, and government cuts are the possible causes of the overturned healthcare economy. Most hospitals have been forced to cut costs and shrink their workforce. At the same time though, certain medical fields are facing severe shortages of workforce, especially in nursing and primary care. These are among the leading changes that have been witnessed in the healthcare job market and get associated with both favorable and adverse effects on job recruitment.

With so many healthcare reforms being initiated, it will result in the creation of more job opportunities without a doubt. This is regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) law which got endorsed in March 2010. The implementation of the ACA led to the creation of more part-time jobs. This caused a negative impact on the full-time jobs and the employment of the young generation, (Suchman et al., 2011). The increased part-time employment is more concentrated among the prime aged and old workers. It is because this is the age group that has a high disutility of labor and therefore the best people to switch to part-time labor under the act.  Before the act got enacted, most of the young people qualified for a Medicaid cover regardless of whether they worked full time or part time, however after the act, the young people most qualified for Medicaid only if they worked part-time jobs. This large shift among young workers to full-time jobs has affected the healthcare job market.

As the healthcare system lumbers towards universal healthcare with a strong emphasis on primary care, such changes besides creating jobs will also impact on the career paths of both aspiring and experienced healthcare professionals. The prominence on primary attention brought about by this law has led to cascading effects on some of the clinical careers.  Since physicians cannot undergo training overnight, healthcare employees have ever since been forced to leverage their MDs with nurse practitioners and physician assistants, (Givan, 2016).  Everything has been pushed to ensure that every individual performs right up to their level of education. There also has been a boost on demand for medical assistants.

Changes in the healthcare job market have impacted on the recruitment too. Most states today license nurse practitioners and physician assistants in physician’s offices to practice on their own without the mandate of being supervised by a professional. This has been a result of the pressure to reduce some of the physicians’ tasks at most healthcare institutions. With the rise on demand for advanced practice nurses, there has been an intensified shortage of bedside RNs. Because the law promotes patient-centered medical homes, these facilities are usually monitored and run by licensed medical providers like physician assistants and nurse practitioners other than just physicians, (Grol et al., 2013). Because of this, most graduates in the physician assistant field have received attention from both the public and private practice sector and therefore get readily employed.