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With a body count like that, you can hardly blame the healthcare industry, let alone Americans on the street, for looking at the prospect of reform with bewilderment and alarm.

In the meantime, the healthcare industry has to find a way to conduct its business and plan for the future.

With contentious policy debates hanging over it, healthcare employers may delay certain investments and other business decisions, but there’s no question that the industry will continue to grow.

All the hurly-burly in Washington, D.C. cannot change the country’s demographic trends, and whatever the future may bring, it appears likely that some key elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will be preserved.

Healthcare Hiring on the Way Up.

However the debate evolves, and however the Trump administration approaches implementing the ACA, two elements of the ACA that support broad insurance access have proved popular: disallowing denials for pre-existing conditions and allowing children to remain on their parents’ plans through age 26.

In addition, even if support for senior citizens is eventually decreased, more Americans are still getting older. As they do, they will need more healthcare, and that will translate into increased healthcare hiring.

That trend has been in place for some time, straight through the vicissitudes of the rest of the U.S. economy. The chart below shows payrolls in two growing industries, with gray regions indicating recessions.

The trends are clear enough when you present the numbers in absolute terms. But a minor tweak to the data emphasizes something even more striking.

As a share of total U.S. non farm payrolls, healthcare has been gaining every time the rest of the U.S. economy pulls back. In contrast, even an up-trending sector like professional and business services turns down with the rest of the economy.

Healthcare Hiring: Size Versus Composition.

For many Americans, the stakes of this debate couldn’t get any higher, but they’re lower for healthcare recruiters. For the daily life of a recruiter, the challenge remains finding winning strategies and tactics in an ever tighter competition for talent.

And even from what you might call a macro-focused recruiter perspective, the issues are more about education and employment – the marketing to and mentoring of the next generation of healthcare workers – than they are about who has to pay how much for each procedure.

From a truly macro perspective, the debate over healthcare is a complicated knot of several contentious issues: household and government budgets, entitlement programs and the scope of human rights, and the challenges of providing health insurance via employers at a time when the labor market is going through profound change.

How much will we spend on Medicaid? How will we incentivize young people to get health insurance? How much will the young and the wealthy be encouraged – or required – to support the poor and the aged?

It’s too soon to say how we will ultimately answer these questions, or how long our government will stick with the latest answers before taking another crack at it. That makes it hard to predict the precise health services and occupations that will be most in demand in the coming years.

Our best information remains forecasts that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published in 2014, after the ACA survived several legal challenges and seemed to have finally become settled law. According to the BLS, healthcare professions will add the most jobs of any occupation group from 2014 to 2024.

The occupation types expected to grow most rapidly are in “healthcare support” – occupations such as medical assistants who will help carry the administrative burdens associated with coordinating care across specialists.

Older people will require more primary care and support from allied health professionals to manage chronic diseases and help them age in place, so while these forecasts probably need revision, much of the general thrust should remain intact.

Healthcare Hiring: The Long View.

As an economist, it’s my job to think about the long term. And as you’ve probably heard, in the long run we’re all dead. But before that, most of us get sick. In fact, more and more of us are living long enough to grow enfeebled and decrepit – and need support.

You can easily enough browse the web for partisan pontifications about how our society is going to deliver and pay for the concomitant services. If you want to find out who exactly might provide those services and how we can ensure we have enough of those people in the right place at the right time, you’re going to have to dig through policy papers by think tanks and industry associations.

The broad strokes look clear enough though. One way or another, as America changes, U.S. policies will change in response, and one thing they can’t do is turn back the clock.

For more information on the state of hiring in healthcare, please see iCIMS’ latest report, Hiring in Healthcare: No Relief in Sight.

About The Author:

Josh Wright is Chief Economist at iCIMS, and is responsible for analyzing proprietary data in order to produce fresh insights on emerging trends in the U.S. labor market. He contributes to the publishing of quarterly trends reports, as well as semi-annual reports and blog posts on ad hoc labor topics.

In addition, Josh supports in the development of software that allows customers to analyze their own performance relative to industry benchmarks by collaborating with data scientists, software developers, and marketing executives. A former Federal Reserve staffer, Josh helped build the Fed’s mortgage-backed securities (MBS) portfolio of more than $1 trillion, among other responses to the global financial crisis.

As a researcher, he has published on labor and housing markets, as well as U.S. monetary policy, and advised policymakers across the legislative and executive branches of government.

Follow Josh on Twitter @JWrightStuff or connect with him on LinkedIn.

The post Healthcare Hiring: A Forward March. appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

This decision, of course, raised the prospects that the judiciary could strike down the rule changes altogether. Meanwhile, there seem to be signs that the incoming Trump administration will seek to roll back, repeal or weaken the overtime rule change regardless of what happens in the courts. Between the political transitions and pending court cases, the final policy remains very much up in the air.

Blowing In The Wind.

While some employers are adopting a “wait and see” approach until the details and deadlines are finally determined, a new study from iCIMS has found evidence that many companies have actually already responded to – and implemented – the original rule change in advance of its original December 1 deadline.

That’s a qualified “many,” of course, because obviously, this group of early adopters by no means includes every employer out there (or even the majority, more than likely). This is obviously problematic, as it essentially means that as long as the rule changes remain stuck in legislative and legal limbo, not all employers are playing by the same rules, creating a potentially uneven playing field in the cutthroat competition for top talent today.

This inequity is a shame, frankly, because the underlying concept behind the proposed rule changes is far simpler and straightforward then the regulatory nitty-gritty and dense legislative legalese would probably have you believe. Like many current political debates, the controversy around the new overtime rules are really just the most recent iterations of some of the most contentious and prominent public policy platforms: labor relations, income inequality and job creation, in this case.

The ostensible purpose of the Obama Administration’s proposed rule change was as a way to work around the gridlock and partisanship surrounding the federal minimum wage, providing a substantive and meaningful change in quality of life for millions of American workers without actually moving the mandatory minimum, which has stayed stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009.

This works out to $15,080 a year before withholdings or taxes (assuming they average a full 40 hour work week), or just under the official household poverty threshold of $15,940 a year, which unlike minimum wage has actually increased over the past few years, much like inflation and the cost of living, among many other pressing considerations that make this policy such a high priority for millions of American workers who stand to benefit from the proposed rules changes.

Gotta Serve Somebody.

Overtime pay is explicitly designed to protect lower income workers from exploitation by their employers. The tricky part, however, is ensuring that these people policies don’t deleteriously impact profit margins. This is not an all or nothing proposition, of course – the more money an employer is able to make, the more they’ll grow, ostensibly allowing them to hire more workers and create more jobs over time.

The traditional tension between people and profits is one of the key themes in business – this is nothing new – but it’s up to our elected officials, not employers themselves, to determine which workers qualify for this protection by setting the salary levels required for overtime eligibility.

In their finite wisdom – and even more finite political capital – those same officials have agreed to establish these thresholds on two separate occasions, but neglected to factor in the impact of increasing inflation on real earnings. This means, not unlike the minimum wage or Social Security, we find our public officials spewing the same rhetoric and rehearsed political arguments about where this magic line actually belongs.

The heart of the proposed rule changes, as outlined in iCIMS’ full report, is that the level of salaries eligible for overtime protections would more than double, from a minimum salary of $23,660 a year to $47, 476 a year. This obviously significant increase would have marked the first raise in the federal overtime threshold in over a decade, causing celebrations among many workers and deep dread among employers and business owners alike.

The bottom line: those millions of workers newly eligible for overtime protections would make 1.5 times their regular pay for hours worked beyond 40 a week – a protection that extends to salaried workers and traditionally exempt employees, too.

The Times, They Are A Changing.

The private sector can ill afford to stand still amid these political crosswinds. And it hasn’t. In a comprehensive review of iCIMS data on estimated salary levels among new hires, there seems to be some emerging trends and probable patterns when it comes to determining not only which companies are the most exposed by the rule changes, but also how these companies are already preparing for the implementation of these regulations.

Looking at the numbers, a few industries stick out; most of these, like the retail trade or financial services sectors, seem fairly obvious. A deeper dive, however, reveals that one of the broadest patterns is that the largest companies – that is, enterprise employers with more than 5,000 employees – also have the largest exposure to these new rules, too. There seems to be a direct correlation between overall headcount and the proportion of new hires whose salaries make them eligible for overtime pay under the proposed rules. In other words, the bigger the business, the bigger the potential impact.

Looking at specific job markets, the numbers also suggest that the highest exposure to the rules change can be found in those areas with the lowest costs of living. The five major markets which would have the highest proportion of salaried employees eligible for overtime pay clearly evidence this correlation, with Cleveland, Salt Lake City, Tampa, Phoenix and Las Vegas topping the list. Las Vegas, for example, would see the percentage of its overall workforce newly eligible for overtime pay climb by a whopping 50%, including a large share of the leisure and hospitality industry.

Since the rule change was first announced, many employers, particularly those with the potential greatest exposure to these new regulations, have taken proactive steps to implement the proposed policies, including raising base salaries for exempt workers or stricter scheduling policies, among other measures.

The largest employers seem to have been the most proactive, likely due to the relative impact and exposure these rules will have on their bottom line as well as the amount of resources these businesses are able to allocate to both lobbying and compliance efforts.

Not Dark Yet.

Those employers who have already proactively implemented the proposed policies will find themselves in a bind, however, if the rule change is rolled back, repealed or ruled against by the courts. The companies who have already announced these changes would either have to suffer the burden of having to pay more than their more cautious competition, or else find themselves forced to backtrack.

Neither option is particularly tenable, considering the direct costs associated with the former, and the significantly negative impact the latter decision would likely have not only on the overall morale and productivity among current staff, but also their recruiting efforts for future hires, too. How much this will impact or influence their more conservative competitors remains to be seen. Suffice to say, many employers who haven’t made changes may find themselves forced to do so in order to ensure competitiveness when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent.

While these big rule changes may create big changes in the way big companies approach compensation – or labor market competition – the biggest impact will inevitably be felt by the 4.2 million workers potentially impacted by these regulations.

The new rules mean that the percentage of full time, exempt employees eligible for overtime pay would rise from just 7% to an estimated 35% of the salaried workforce – a significant increase, but still nowhere near the estimated 60% back in 1975, the last time the federal government altered their eligibility requirements.

Of course, like any complex political discourse or policy debate, there’s a twist when trying to determine the “magic line” for overtime eligibility, one that’s highlighted by the federal court case that precipitated the initial injunction: not only have price and income levels risen since 1975, but there have been some sweeping and seismic changes when it comes to the composition of the workforce and the U.S. economy as a whole. From the rise of the gig economy to globalization, many of the factors at work in the world of work have irrevocably and fundamentally changed.

Whatever we think of those changes, we cannot turn back the clock. We cannot fight the inevitable. And we cannot continue to leave our most valuable assets without the protections implicit to overtime pay eligibility. How we go about determining where that magic line gets drawn, or which trade offs employers should be forced to make between wage adjustments and job creation, remains a topic for debate.

What’s inarguable, however, is the fact that this is a debate that’s well worth having – and long overdue, too.

About the Author: Josh Wright is the Chief Economist at iCIMS, where he’s responsible for analyzing proprietary and external data in order to produce fresh insights on the U.S. labor market. He authors blog posts and quarterly reports on emerging trends in talent acquisition and ad hoc labor topics.

In addition, Josh supports the development of software that allows iCIMS customers to analyze their own performance relative to industry benchmarks, in collaboration with our data scientists, software developers, and marketing executives.

A former Federal Reserve staffer, Josh helped build the Fed’s mortgage-backed securities (MBS) portfolio of more than $1 trillion, among other responses to the global financial crisis. As a researcher at the Fed and Bloomberg, he has published on labor and housing markets, as well as U.S. monetary policy, and advised policymakers across the legislative and executive branches of government.

Follow Josh on Twitter @JWrightStuff or connect with him on LinkedIn.

The post Things Have Changed: Why Overtime Pay Rule Changes Are Long Overdue. appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

The good news is that the numbers are striking. The unemployment rate has dropped by about half from its peak in the great recession, as 7.5 million people have left the ranks of the unemployed. Nonfarm payroll growth has been averaging above 200,000 per month for about 18 months – over twice as much as necessary to keep the unemployment rate falling.

The bad news? There has never been such a divide between the headline labor indicators and the secondary ones. Among the latter, many voters and workers are concerned about wages and underemployment. Despite a record rise in income last year, real household income remains below its level in the 1990s, and the number of people reporting that they have to settle for part-time work remains high. Even recently created full-time jobs may not offer the security and benefits that Americans once took for granted.

This divergence between headline jobs figures and secondary indicators helps explain the pessimism we hear in response to survey questions about the country’s direction, but it also raises a lot of questions. The current atmosphere of economic insecurity presents a real opportunity for economists, journalists, and politicians to raise Americans’ literacy in economic data and critical thinking about economic issues. Unfortunately, no one seems to have found a way to seize that opportunity in the mass media. The candidates – and to a lesser extent, reporters – seem to have focused on voters’ fears about their economic prospects.

Voice of Reason: Labor Indicators

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has taken a different tack. She has been outspoken in drawing attention to alternative labor indicators. She may be right when she says that the unemployment rate is still the single best labor market indicator, but it doesn’t summarize the labor market the way it used to. The labor market is shifting in response to demographic and technological changes, and it is not always straightforward to compare today’s unemployment rate to another era’s.

Hiring trends are more straightforward, and may provide insight into voter sentiment heading into November. The statistics in an iCIMS report on hiring trends in swing counties are about actual jobs reported by employers. By “swing counties” we mean counties that are large enough or persuadable enough that they could tip the balance in the key swing states that could, in turn, tip the balance in the Electoral College. Our data indicate that the growth in total hiring has been stronger in most of the Florida and Ohio swing counties than across the country as a whole, although they haven’t seen a consistent increase in their proportion of full-time jobs. In Pennsylvania, the swing counties have underperformed the nation as a whole – their hiring growth rates slowed to the point of outright declines.

Election Day: What Does This Mean for November 8?

It’s worth noting that the strength of hiring seen in most of these swing counties is consistent with the positive results of major surveys of consumer sentiment about the economy. Moreover, strong consumer spending numbers show that Americans are optimistic enough about the economy to go out and shop, however downbeat they sound in opinion polls. When it comes to economic sentiment and spending patterns, economists generally assume that the most recent few months are of primary importance.

For polling and voting patterns, it’s less clear when views on the economic outlook consolidate, let alone how they interact with views on incumbent versus challenging parties, candidates, and policy platforms. Political scientists believe that anywhere from 40 percent to 90 percent of election results can be attributed to economic fundamentals such as the job market. Economics isn’t everything – least of all in the election of 2016 – but hiring trends suggest a significant tailwind for the incumbent party in the swing counties of Florida and Ohio, but a headwind in Pennsylvania.

About The Author: Josh Wright is Chief Economist at iCIMS, and is responsible for analyzing proprietary data in order to produce fresh insights on emerging trends in the U.S. labor market. He contributes to the publishing of quarterly trends reports, as well as semi-annual reports and blog posts on ad hoc labor topics. In addition, Josh supports in the development of software that allows customers to analyze their own performance relative to industry benchmarks by collaborating with data scientists, software developers, and marketing executives.

A former Federal Reserve staffer, Josh helped build the Fed’s mortgage-backed securities (MBS) portfolio of more than $1 trillion, among other responses to the global financial crisis.

As a researcher, he has published on labor and housing markets, as well as U.S. monetary policy, and advised policymakers across the legislative and executive branches of government.

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