Health care isn't just busy at the moment: It's now doing the heavy lifting for America's job market. Most of the 130,000 positions tacked on in January came from health care or related roles—think home health aides and nursing home staff, per Quartz—as hiring in government, tech, finance, and transportation slipped. Economists say the health care sector is "way outperforming" most of the economy, powered by an aging population and work that's hard to automate, reports the Wall Street Journal. That concentration comes with a potential downside if the sector stumbles, but analysts note that health jobs are spread across the country and tend to hold steady through economic swings.
Immigrants are a key piece of the picture. Though they make up less than 15% of the US population, they account for a large share of home health aides, doctors, and dentists. Their role is similarly pronounced in construction trades, where labor shortages and immigration crackdowns are helping drive up building costs. On the ground, the imbalance shows up as signing bonuses, bidding wars for nurses, and hundreds of open positions at rural health systems. While some economists worry that other industries are now shrinking, others argue that demand for care isn't going anywhere, because "old people are not going away," as one fellow at a labor think tank puts it to the Journal. CNBC, meanwhile, reports on the 10 fastest-growing jobs in health care, with nurse practitioner in the No. 1 spot.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
