U.S. health care workers are unsure whether they're likely to search for new employment; however, they're more confident that they could find new jobs if necessary, according to third-quarter findings from the Randstad Healthcare Employee Confidence Index.
Specifically, the survey finds overall employee confidence dropped 0.5 points to 53.4 in the third quarter.
"Despite a slight decrease among a few of the confidence measures, such as intentions to seek new employment and overall strength of the economy, the health care industry remains one of the fastest growing sectors," says Steve McMahan, executive vice president of Randstad US, Professionals. "The reality is that health care jobs will be in high demand for many years to come due to an aging population, health care reform and technological advances. We believe the moderate dampening of confidence levels this quarter may be largely attributed to recent economic headlines looming around the potential fiscal cliff and stock market volatility."
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Even a recent study by Georgetown University's Center on Education and Workforce shows that the overall number of health care workers must increase by nearly 30 percent by 2020 if the industry is to meet demand. This marks the largest growth for any sector in the country over the next 10 years. The demand for health care employees is also expected to grow almost twice as fast as the national economy, and more than 80 percent of these new health care jobs are predicted to require specialized training and post-secondary education.
Among the respondents of the Randstad survey, fewer believe more jobs are available as that figure fell by 13 percent while 54 percent say there are fewer job opportunities available for a slight increase from the second quarter. Twenty-three percent of respondents report that they are likely to look for new jobs in the next year, marking a drop of 14 percentage points from the second quarter.
Another 55 percent of respondents say they are confident they could new employment over the next 12 months, up from 51 percent in the second quarter, and 68 percent of respondents say they feel confident regarding their companies' futures, an increase by 10 percentage points from the previous quarter.
While 44 percent of respondents say the economy is weakening, a slight uptick of one percentage point from the second quarter, 20 percent of respondents say the economy is growing stronger for no change from the second quarter.
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