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The jobs report released Friday said the health-care sector shed a record number of jobs in April as medical facilities halted elective procedures and doctors’ and dentists’ offices closed because of shutdowns aimed at containing the coronavirus.
The count by the Labor Department, which broadly reported record payroll losses of 20.5 million and a 14.7% unemployment rate, included workers in hospitals, nursing-care facilities, diagnostic laboratories and medical offices focused on routine care. The health-care sector lost 1.4 million jobs in April, led by half a million jobs cut from dentists’ offices and nearly a quarter-million cut from physicians’ offices. Hospitals and doctors’ offices began in mid-March to postpone procedures that could wait, voluntarily or under state and local mandates.
The halt to surgeries left hospitals better able to deal with an influx of coronavirus patients, a move that proved critical where outbreaks rapidly escalated. Elsewhere, however, hospitals emptied, and hospital earnings plummeted with the drop in patients and revenue.
Hospitals cut nearly 135,000 jobs in April, according to the Labor Department. Hospitals and surgery centers face mounting financial pressure, and some say a number of lost jobs might not come back.
