Publications

The Demand for Health Care Workers Post-ACA

Author(s): 

Bianca Frogner, Joanne Spetz, Stephen T. Parente, Shelley Oberlin

Date: 
March 6, 2015

Concern abounds about whether the health care workforce is sufficient to meet changing demands spurred by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We project that by 2022 the health care industry needs three to four million additional workers, forty percent of which is related to demand growth under the ACA. We project faster job growth in the ambulatory care sector, especially in home health care. Given the current profile, we expect that the future health care workforce will be increasingly female, young, racially/ethnically diverse, not US-born, at or below the poverty level and at a low level of educational attainment.