New York’s home health employment is continuing to soar, growing by 57,000 jobs or 10 percent from 2023 to 2024, according to newly released data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The state’s workforce of home health and personal care aides grew to an estimated 623,000 as of May 2024, according to BLS’s Occupational and Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, an annual survey posted Tuesday.
That equated to 171 aides per 1,000 residents aged 65 or older, which was the highest rate in the U.S. – 153 percent higher than the national average and 24 percent ahead of the No. 2 state, California.
The state’s one-year increase of 57,000 accounted for almost a fifth of the home health aide jobs added nationwide.
Within New York, the category of “home health and personal care aides” – with a median hourly wage of $18.26 – represented 38 percent of all job growth. Predominantly financed by Medicaid, the state’s safety-net health plan, home health remained the largest job category in the state, outnumbering “retail sales persons” by a ratio of 2.7-1.
The BLS data show that New York’s overall health-care workforce grew to 1.4 million workers in 2024, which was a one-year increase of 97,000 or 7 percent, about three times the average rate for all occupations statewide. It’s also 244,000 jobs or 21 percent larger than it was in May 2019, the last survey before the pandemic. Over those five years, health care went from 12 percent to 15 of all occupations.
Most of that increase occurred in lower-paid “healthcare support occupations,” which grew by 8 percent or 62,000 jobs. The category of “healthcare practitioners and technical occupations” – which includes doctors, nurses and other licensed caregivers – saw a one-year increase of 6 percent or 36,000 jobs.
The survey showed a one-year increase of 16,000 or 9 percent among registered nurses, the second-largest health-care occupation and the fourth-largest overall. The state’s total of 204,000 R.N.s was 14 percent higher than before Covid-19 struck.
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