January got off to a positive start with unemployment dropping .4 to 9.0%. That is the lowest rate since May of 2009. Lest we get too excited, remember that since 1948 the unemployment rate has averaged 5.7% with all time lows of 2.5% in 1953 and a high of 10.8 in 1982. So, in the scheme of things 9% is still high.
The good news for the Local Eye Site community is that healthcare has faired better in jobs than the rest of the economy. Healthcare continued to add jobs at an average clip of 22,000 jobs per month in 2010. In fact, of the ten occupations with the lowest unemployment rates, five of them are in healthcare. Online job ads tell the same story-online job ads for healthcare practitioners and technical workers surged in January by 78,500 job listings; there were three job listings for every healthcare practitioner job seeker.
Hopefully these trends will continue, and the rays of economic optimism displayed by gains on Wall Street will inspire the confidence needed for employers in all industries to increase their staff levels. That should cause a trickle down of consumer spending that will additionally bolster the healthcare market, especially in elective areas like refractive surgery.
Sources:
1. https://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/01/12/132859364/which-jobs-have-the-highest-and-lowest-unemployment-rates
2. https://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/Unemployment-Rate.aspx?Symbol=USD
3. https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/TEC-261984/Healthcare-Job-Postings-Surge-in-January
4. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
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