Nursing demand drops in Q2 as healthcare hiring shifts toward physicians, pharmacy

Editor's Note

Healthcare hiring slowed in the second quarter of 2025, with nursing and technician roles experiencing steep declines even as physician and pharmacy jobs continued to grow. According to HealthLeaders August 19, the shift signals a potential rebalancing in workforce priorities as hospitals and health systems adapt to financial pressures and evolving care models.

As detailed in the article, overall healthcare job postings fell, led by a 10% year-over-year drop in nursing positions and an 8.4% decline in technician roles. Personal care and home health jobs also fell by nearly 9%. By contrast, physician and surgeon postings grew 3.7%, while pharmacy roles rose 2%. Therapy and dental jobs posted modest declines. Analysts suggest the slowdown in nursing demand marks a reversal of long-standing hiring trends and may reflect tighter budgets or changing delivery models.

The outlet reports wage growth is also decelerating across healthcare, consistent with broader economic patterns. While childcare, personal care and home health, and medical technician wages grew faster than the overall labor market average of 2.9% in July, most sectors saw wages stall or decline over the past 6 months. Nursing wages slipped by 0.4 percentage points, dental by 1.4 points, and therapy by 0.2 points. Personal care and home health was the only subsector to post a 6-month wage increase, up 0.2 points, while technician pay held flat.

Despite these cooling trends, healthcare continues to underpin US job growth. The article notes in July, the sector accounted for 76% of all new jobs nationwide, adding 55,400 of the 73,000 positions reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This resilience highlights healthcare’s role as a stabilizer in the broader labor market, even as other sectors such as manufacturing and government shed jobs and prior months’ figures were revised downward.