Healthcare has been propping up a shaky labor market. For the first time in over four years, the sector shed thousands of jobs
Despite making up nearly a fifth of the U.S. economy and providing a much-needed set of crutches, the latest healthcare jobs data highlights just how wobbly the labor market is.
Over 28,000 jobs in the healthcare industry were lost in February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report on Friday, making up nearly one-third of the 92,000 total jobs lost for the month. The dip marks the sector’s first decline in more than four years.
The sector has long been considered to be safeguarded from the factors that have led to a growing period of contracting employment in most other industries, such as tariffs, AI, and other economic uncertainties. Almost all growth last year came from healthcare and social services. While the U.S. economy only saw an increase of 116,000 jobs in 2025, the healthcare industry alone added 693,000 jobs. That means without the industry, the total U.S. economy would have lost roughly 577,000 jobs.
Factcheck: Per the Feb BLS jobs report: healthcare shed ~28k jobs mainly due to a major strike by 30k+ nurses/workers at Kaiser Permanente in CA/HI. Offices of physicians dropped 37k from that alone. It’s expected to reverse next month. AI is augmenting roles (e.g., cutting admin time for docs/nurses) rather than driving net losses here—healthcare still faces shortages from aging population.