A First Look at Health Care Employment in Dayton

According to the County Business Patterns database the Health Care & Social Services sector is one of the few growing sectors in the Montgomery County economy, and has surpassed manufacturing as the largest employment sector.

Since this is becoming a signifigant part of the employment picture here, it warrants a closer look.

The sector really consists of two areas, the medical-related area of ambulatory care and medical/surgical hospitals, and the social services sector, which includes things nursing homes, day care, and so forth. All these sectors grew between 1998-2006, adding jobs over the time period:



Considered as a percentage or share, the medical side has by far the most jobs, around 70% of the category, much of that in hospitals:


Taking a closer look at trends, one can see how the two sectors segregate out.


Looking at growth trends, one can see ambulatory care increasing at a slightly higher rate:



For the nursing facilities and social services area the trend seems to be steeper:



What's interesting about these numbers is how they compare to manufacturing, in that some of these sectors employ more people than the entire local automotive sector, or the metalworking and machinery sectors. More people working in nursing homes than in the various fabricated metals companys here.

There's more detail in some of these categories (for example, ambulatory care). I'll look at this later in the week.