By Harriet Torry and Josh Ulick
Healthcare jobs are keeping the U.S. labor market humming. And they're keeping California afloat.
Hiring for health and social-assistance jobs in the Golden State grew 25% in the four-year period from March 2022 to March 2026, according to analysis of Labor Department data by bipartisan think tank Economic Innovation Group. These are often low-paying jobs in roles like senior care, the data show.
Without those sectors, the state hosting the nation's high-tech and entertainment hubs would have lost jobs in that time period. This gap between health-related and other parts of the economy proved greater in California than in any other U.S. state, according to EIG.
The latest federal jobs report showed health continuing to play a huge role: jobs in healthcare and social assistance accounted for about 47% of the higher-than-expected 115,000 gain in April.
EIG analyzed a three-year span of the most recent Labor Department data to cover a mixed period for the labor market, which saw a dramatic cooling off after a postpandemic hiring boom. Among some lesser-populated states, Oregon topped the list for the weakest labor market in that span beyond healthcare and social-assistance jobs: down 1.5% without those sectors, compared with up 1.4% when they're included.
Economists say several factors are helping drive the healthcare boom, both nationwide and in California. One is broad: an aging population that needs lots of medical care.
California, along with other states including Oregon and Washington, have also made a push to provide in-home supportive services to older adults to try to reduce the need for hospital care. This bumps up demand for home-care workers.
Meanwhile, California has poured billions into behavioral services in recent years. Hiring of mental health practitioners there has nearly doubled from the third quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2025, according to the EIG data.
Breaking down jobs within healthcare and social assistance, some of California's biggest growth came from mental health practitioners and occupations that work with elderly people and people with disabilities.
The latter category tends to include low-paying jobs where pay often hasn't kept pace with inflation. For example, employment in home health services jumped nearly 25% from the third quarter of 2023 through the third quarter of 2025, but wages in that category declined 2.7%, according to the EIG data.
Altogether, "you're seeing far more seats open in low-wage sectors and seats go away in high-wage sectors," said Kenan Fikri, a senior fellow at EIG.
California is "creating more jobs in low-paid, locally serving healthcare or healthcare-related sectors and losing jobs in high-paying, high-value, export-oriented manufacturing and highly paid service sectors," he said.
Some of the forces that helped turbocharge the health-jobs boom may be shifting.
California is curtailing a program that offered Medicaid coverage for people living in the U.S. unlawfully. And like all states, California faces cuts to Medicaid due to the "One Big Beautiful Bill" Act and the end of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies. A healthcare union is trying to get a measure on November's ballot that would add a billionaire's tax aimed mostly at raising money to cover that Medicaid hole.
"If this federal support starts to dry up, we're going to soon discover whether the healthcare boom has legs sufficient to stand independently," Fikri said.
Write to Harriet Torry at harriet.torry@wsj.com and Josh Ulick at josh.ulick@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 11, 2026 12:00 ET (16:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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