Top Trending Entry-Level Healthcare Positions Focus on In-Home Care

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It’s no secret that there is huge demand for Home Health Aides across the United States.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics put out a report early last year, and the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) followed suit in June 2016 with their article, “H is for Home Health Aide.” But will these positions be attractive to future workers who will have increasingly more choice in our nation’s job market and are looking for opportunities that offer a living wage and professional advancement?  Maybe not, unless employers start changing what they offer.

As many Minnesotans age and require additional medical attention (the population of Minnesotans over 65 years of age will increase by more than 400,000 people between 2014 and 2024), the need for Healthcare Support Professionals is increasing rapidly. Couple that with a growing preference to receive care in the home rather than in a care facility, the demand for Home Health Aides is skyrocketing.  In 2016, there were approximately 27,550 Home Health Aides working in the state and 4,457 Home Health Aide job openings advertised online; the occupation ranks as the 21st most in-demand position and the 20th most common occupation in Minnesota today.  Demand is projected to grow by 30.1 percent (9,254 jobs) between 2014 and 2024–the third highest growth rate of any occupation in Minnesota. However, these positions offer some of the lowest salaries of any occupation in the healthcare industry, with a median wage of $24,944 and currently advertised positions only offering $20-26k as a starting salary–just barely hitting the threshold for a living wage for a single adult ($11.39 in Hennepin County).  There may be little incentive to encourage workers to take on these roles as the number of job opportunities begins to exceed the number of available workers in the laborforce.

We are already observing high rates of job vacancies in entry-level healthcare positions that require an Associate’s degree or less.  Online job postings in the Twin Cities Metro for low-experience, low-education Licensed Practical Nurses and Home Health Aides have increased more than 7% since 2015, dramatically greater than other entry-level healthcare opportunities.  Hennepin County was home to 24% of the state’s total entry-level healthcare positions in 2016.

As Minnesota continues to face changing demographics, how will employers respond to ensure that they attract the candidates they need? Hopefully, we will start to see rising wages for entry-level healthcare positions.

For more data on healthcare occupations at the Twin Cities and Statewide level, check out our reports page.

Twin Cities Healthcare Report, March 2017

Minnesota Healthcare Report, March 2017

Building Minnesota’s Workforce: Realistic approaches to address our need for more workers

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Minnesota will soon face a significant labor shortage. In some key industries, the shortage is already being felt acutely by employers. If unemployment rates, existing racial and ethnic employment disparities, and trends in migration continue, we can expect only an average 0.35% annual increase in employment between 2016 and 2022. This is due in large part to the rapid retirement rate of the baby boomer generation, and the decreasing rate of participation in the labor force of young people.

This graphic, originally developed in October 2016 and now updated with new data and insights, offers a simplified 6-year outlook at the impact of several challenging, yet important goals for the future employment of Minnesotans.

Late last year, RealTime Talent used the data published by the MN Demographic Center to take a deeper look at recent employment trends, migration patterns, and Minnesota’s gross state product. We found that Minnesota will need about 278 thousand additional workers above which we anticipate to be employed by 2022. That means we need between 40 and 45 thousand additional workers each year to maintain our current rate of economic growth.

Modest improvements to this scenario can be obtained through some familiar kinds of interventions in the functioning of the labor force. Namely, increasing labor force participation and focusing on increasing employment rates. However, even if we take the most optimistic outlook, we will likely still fall short at least 200 thousand workers by 2022 across the state. In the years ahead, we will need new and diverse strategies for attracting and retaining talent from both domestic and international sources, as well as creative approaches to increasing the productivity of Minnesota’s existing workforce.

For more information, download the graphic here.

2016 Trends in Hiring in the Twin Cities Metro

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In the Twin Cities, the workforce is mobile. Although differences exist between the candidate pools and job opportunities found in each of the metro’s seven counties, there are more similarities than differences.

Metro employers continue to seek out candidates with a strong foundation in soft skills including communication, attention to detail, problem solving, and customer service. Information Technology is the top job function area in demand in the metro area, with a particular focus around business information management, healthcare IT, and cybersecurity in finance IT.

For more details on the booming job market in the Twin Cities Metro, take a look at our recent report or the summary slides linked below.

 

 

Feature in Twin Cities Business Mag: MHTA Rolls Out New Skills-Focused Job Board

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RealTime Talent’s newest platform, the Exchange, was featured in Twin Cities Business Magazine this week in a story highlighting the Minnesota High Tech Association’s new site. The story was picked up at MHTA’s Tech.2017 breakfast which was held at the Metropolitan Ballroom last week and drew around 200 leaders in high tech innovation.  Featured in the article are insights from Margaret Anderson Kelliher, President and CEO of MHTA, and WorkFountain’s Program Manager for Minnesota, Dave Kornecki.

The full article by Andrew Eggert can be read on the Twin Cities Business Magazine website at: http://tcbmag.com/News/Recent-News/2017/February/MHTA-Rolls-Out-New-Skills-Focused-Job-Board