JAMA
Jonathan Skinner, PhD; Amitabh Chandra, PhD
In 2013, the growth rate in US health care spending of 3.6% was the lowest in 50 years. Health policy experts and the media viewed the “unprecedented” decline as demonstrating that growth in health care costs had finally slowed.1 However, one number that was not consistent with this popular narrative was employment growth in the health care sector. In 2013, health care jobs continued to increase by 1.4%, slightly below the annual average of 1.9% during the prior 5 years.