[A]bsent the growth in the health care sector, employment is about at the same level as the peak of the last business cycle of more than a decade ago. Moreover, expressed as a percent of the working age population the picture is even worse.
Health care employment growth has been unaffected by the last two business cycles as illustrated in the figure. Since the beginning of the this recession, health care employment has grown more than 11 percent, and the growth was steady, even during the contraction in which all employment fell almost 6 percent.
