{"id":350193,"date":"2026-06-25T17:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T17:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/350193\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T17:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T17:19:09","slug":"health-care-helps-drive-central-texas-job-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/350193\/","title":{"rendered":"Health care helps drive Central Texas job market"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLast year, the Austin-area job market grew faster than any other major metro in the country\u2014adding<\/a> 27,200 jobs in 2025, which represents 2% year-over-year growth, according to an April 2026 report<\/a> from Opportunity Austin.<\/p>\n

The health care industry is among the fastest-growing, and is expected to grow 2.4% annually, adding about 6,780 workers per year, said Ashley King, director of health care partnerships at Workforce Solutions Capital Area.<\/p>\n

As of November, the education and health services sector had added 4,100 jobs, or 2.5% growth, from the prior year, according to Opportunity Austin\u2019s January 2026 economic indicators<\/a>. Meanwhile, the information sector, which includes most of Austin\u2019s tech workforce, declined 2.4%, or about 1,200 jobs, during the same time frame, according to the report.<\/p>\n

King said the health care sector cannot train workers fast enough to fill the jobs being created.<\/p>\n

\"chart<\/p>\n

What’s happening<\/p>\n

Nursing programs across the country turned away 93,176 qualified applications in 2025\u2014a record high\u2014primarily due to insufficient clinical placement sites, faculty shortages and limited classroom space, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite the hurdles, health sciences was the fastest-growing area of study at Austin Community College<\/a> in fall 2025, with enrollment up 18.3%\u2014the largest increase of any program area\u2014according to enrollment data<\/a>. Texas also did not fund<\/a> its nurse preceptor grant program, which funds hospitals to train nursing students through hands-on clinical supervision, in the state budget, according to the Texas Hospital Association.<\/p>\n

\u201cClinical placement space is the main barrier to growing our health science programs,\u201d King said. \u201cThere is not a lack of people who want to enter health care careers.\u201d<\/p>\n

What’s next<\/p>\n

ACC, Hays CISD, Pflugerville ISD and regional health care partners formally launched<\/a> the Central Texas Healthcare Academy on May 11.<\/p>\n

About 560 students are enrolled for the free dual credit program this fall, which ACC said serves seven high schools across HCISD and PfISD.<\/p>\n

Students begin taking classes in ninth grade across five career tracks:<\/p>\n

Professional nursingDiagnostic medical imagingSurgical technologyHealth information technologyParamedicGraduates can enter the workforce directly or continue into ACC\u2019s associate degree programs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cCentral Texas Healthcare Academy<\/a> cannot address the bottleneck of clinical placements directly but will give high school students an opportunity for hands-on training in high school that will accelerate their education,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year, the Austin-area job market grew faster than any other major metro in the country\u2014adding 27,200 jobs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[124822,124819,124825,124820,124821,124824,124827,124829,124823,124826,124828,27,29,28,61487],"class_list":["post-350193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-acc-health-sciences","tag-austin-health-care-jobs","tag-austin-health-care-workforce","tag-austin-job-market-growth","tag-central-texas-healthcare-academy","tag-clinical-placement-shortage","tag-hays-cisd-dual-credit","tag-health-care-workforce-pipeline","tag-nursing-shortage-texas","tag-pflugerville-isd-health-sciences","tag-registered-nurse-shortage-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-workforce-solutions-capital-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}