{"id":736682,"date":"2026-06-14T18:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T18:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/736682\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T18:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T18:26:11","slug":"the-healthcare-sector-emerges-as-a-lifeline-for-struggling-job-seekers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/736682\/","title":{"rendered":"The healthcare sector emerges as a lifeline for struggling job seekers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/p>\n

Millions of Americans are taking months to find work, but the healthcare industry is hiring at a steady pace.
\n Workers from hospitality, logistics and other industries are pivoting to healthcare roles like nursing assistants and medical billing specialists.
\n Some hospitals now offer free training programs that can turn janitors into nurses, eliminating degree requirements to fill persistent vacancies.<\/p>\n

\n AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.<\/p>\n

Washington\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n

\n While millions of Americans are struggling to find jobs in a tough labor market, healthcare is emerging as a lifeline for career changers.\n <\/p>\n

\n After six years as a stay-at-home mother, Cynthia Webster, 50, planned last year to reenter the workforce, bracing for a potentially frustrating job search.\n <\/p>\n

\n So Webster, who had no healthcare sector experience, signed up for a six-week training course through her local hospital in Palm Bay, Florida, that cost her less than $2,000.\n <\/p>\n

\n After completing the course she not only found work as a certified nursing assistant right away but has already been approached about becoming a licensed practical nurse, a big step up.\n <\/p>\n

\"Cynthia<\/p>\n

\n Webster\u2019s experience contrasts sharply with the millions of Americans in other industries who have struggled to find a job over the past year. Even recent college graduates have found themselves submitting hundreds of applications just to land an internship<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n A handful of industries \u2014 like healthcare \u2014 have helped drive the pickup in US job growth in recent months<\/a>, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. America\u2019s aging population and the necessity of healthcare have propelled the industry\u2019s ongoing hiring spree.\n <\/p>\n

\n And Americans without work still face long spells of unemployment: The number of people unemployed for more than 26 weeks rose in May to 1.83 million, slightly below a four-year high reached in December.\n <\/p>\n

\n Healthcare recruiters tell CNN they\u2019ve noticed an uptick in people pivoting into the industry to take jobs with a lower barrier to entry, such as nursing assistants and home health aides. Non-healthcare jobs in the industry, such as IT technicians and marketing specialists, are also growing steadily.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cEverybody needs medical, no matter what, even if you\u2019re just going in for an appointment,\u201d Webster said. \u201cThere\u2019s always going to be a job in the industry, from housekeeping and cafeteria to being a nurse.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The Place for Children with Autism, an autism therapy center in the Chicago metropolitan area, began offering a revamped training program this year for registered behavior technicians to address persistent vacancies.\n <\/p>\n

\n The program, which doesn\u2019t require prior healthcare experience, has received more than 10,000 applications so far, with 95% of applicants outside the industry, according to Trevor Freel, the company\u2019s director of talent acquisition.\n <\/p>\n

\n The free program pays trainees $18 an hour and is a fast-track process to becoming a registered behavior technician within 90 days of starting. And after candidates become certified, they\u2019re automatically bumped up to $19 an hour, with pay increases up to $26 hourly.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhen we offer jobs, I\u2019ve had people cry on the phone with me and say, \u2018Thank you so much\u2019,\u201d Freel said. \u201cI mean, you can hear the desperation in their voice.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Many new healthcare workers from 2020 to 2023 came from a non-healthcare role or after returning to the workforce, according to a study<\/a> published in Medical Care Research and Review. That trend has persisted in recent months, according to data from jobs site Indeed, specifically for jobs like phlebotomist and medical billing specialist.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cYou\u2019re seeing a lot of people from hotel and restaurant management moving over into senior-living management; you\u2019re seeing people from supply chain and logistics moving over into hospital-material management,\u201d said Andy Decker, chief executive at Goodwin Recruiting, a talent acquisition firm that works with hundreds of healthcare organizations.\n <\/p>\n

\n UCHealth, a health system based in Colorado that employs around 37,000 people, currently has dozens of job openings that have nothing to do with healthcare, ranging from accounts payable analyst to HVAC mechanic.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHealthcare is kind of like a small city,\u201d said Angela Spinelli, a senior director of talent acquisition at UCHealth. \u201cWe have all manner of positions available, from finance to HR, all of the above, so there\u2019s something for everyone.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Christine<\/p>\n

\n The system also offers training for employees who want to move up or even pivot into patient-facing healthcare jobs, such as nursing. UCHealth has eliminated high school and GED requirements for many entry-level roles in order to \u201cget more people in the door,\u201d Spinelli said.\n <\/p>\n

\n That means someone can get hired by UCHealth as a janitor, for example, then eventually become a nurse after enrolling in the system\u2019s training program \u2014 at no cost.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI really never thought I would be in the medical field in all my life, but here I am doing it, and actually, I love it,\u201d Webster, the newly minted CNA, told CNN.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary Millions of Americans are taking months to find work, but the healthcare industry is hiring at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-736682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}