WASHINGTON -- America's lucrative job market of recent years is now long gone, with the unemployment rate recently rising to its highest level since October 2021. But there's still some serious momentum in one industry. These workers have plentiful jobs available to them across the country and are raking in higher wage gains than the broader private sector.
Employers in this industry also hire quickly and typically offer cushy perks such as massive sign-on bonuses and tuition reimbursement. Enter America's top job creator: The mighty health care industry. So far in 2024, health care has added a stunning 59,000 jobs a month, on average, through July, according to Labor Department data released in early August.
That's the most of any industry, and it includes positions such as nurses, home health aides and emergency medical technicians. Demand for health care workers remains red hot, according to recent government data on job openings. In June, the health care and social assistance industry had the highest seasonally adjusted job openings rate of any industry, at 7.
6%, well above the total rate across the job market of 5.5% that month. "Health care is a major, major engine of growth.
I mean, it's just incredible how much demand there is for those workers," said Julia Pollak, ZipRecruiter's chief economist. That has translated into fatter paychecks for health care workers compared to the general private sector. In the second quarter from a year earlier, employees in the health c.