Career Schools Address Shortage of Healthcare Workers as Boomers Age

After World War II ended in 1945, millions of American soldiers came home with the goal to resume their lives after serving in a conflict that they had been lucky enough to survive. As millions of young veterans settled down, got married and started families, a baby boom began. The post-war baby boom surged from 1945 to the mid-1960s, and today those babies represent the huge Boomer demographic. As of the 2020 US census, there are 73 million baby boomers, and by 2030, all of them will have reached or exceeded 65 years old¹.

As the baby boomers retire, the United States economy is struggling with a Skills Gap: the shortage of skilled workers in all industrial sectors, including healthcare. And with the over-65 demographic growing rapidly, medical technicians of all kinds are in great demand to provide care for this population. By 2030, we can definitely expect that demand to increase. What do the job demand numbers look like?

Medical Technicians Are in High-Demand Nationwide

In the chart below, we look at five in-demand healthcare occupations, and the job growth projected for these positions. The best way to determine job demand is to look directly at the official sources for occupational information. The charts below are aggregated directly from O*NET OnLine, which obtains its data directly from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Using the chart below, plug in the “Occupation code” into the Search by Occupation field on O*NET OnLine, and the results will be displayed on the page. This will show you everything you need to know about that particular health career field. It also supplies excellent information regarding certifications, wages and related job fields for the training you wish to pursue.

"Projected growth" represents the estimated change in total employment over the projections period. ** Projected additional job openings refers to the average annual job openings due to growth and net replacement.

The infographic above shows that these five healthcare occupations are projected to experience more than a 13% increase in available job openings nationwide over the next decade². In short, the United States does not currently produce nearly enough healthcare workers as it actually needs, so the demand to fill these jobs goes unfulfilled. Employers continue to struggle without enough skilled individuals to fill the positions they need to fill, and are willing to pay competitive wages to secure highly skilled and eager individuals.

Lincoln Tech is dedicated to helping fix the skills gap by offering many excellent career training options in the healthcare industry including Practical Nursing, Patient Care, Medical and Dental Assisting, all of which are projected to have positive growth in job demand for at least the next decade.

Please contact Lincoln Tech to learn more.

¹ https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/12/by-2030-all-baby-boomers-will-be-age-65-or-older.html, Published on December 10, 2019, last revised on February 25, 2022, retrieved on May 16, 2023.

² Projected increase is calculated as (total additional job openings / total demand in 2031), expressed as a rounded percentage.