PhysEmp Insights

Offices of physicians added 1,100 jobs in September, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures summarized by Becker’s Hospital Review. Healthcare as a whole added 17,000, about half the 33,000 monthly average of the prior twelve months. For anyone tracking Physician & Advanced Practice Jobs, that reads as cooling.

The rest of this week’s reporting points to a less tidy picture. Permanent hiring in doctors’ offices went quiet, while the channels that sit outside the office payroll kept drawing demand, some of it durable and some of it tied to labor disputes that will end.

Hospitals added 12,000 jobs and ambulatory care added 13,400, while nursing and residential care facilities lost 8,700. Inside ambulatory care, offices of other health practitioners added 6,700, about six times the physician-office gain. The Becker’s summary does not say which occupations those offices hired, and the physician-office category counts every employee in a doctors’ office, not only physicians. It also does not separate nurse practitioners and physician assistants from the rest. One month of data is also a thin base for any trend claim.

A hiring count measures positions filled on an employer’s payroll. It says nothing about how many shifts, assignments and coverage gaps were filled through other arrangements, which is where a flat month and a tight market can both be true.

The best public gauge of contingent clinical labor this week comes from nursing, not from physicians or advanced practice clinicians, so it is a proxy and should be read as one. Staffing Industry Analysts forecasts that travel nurse revenue will rise 2% in 2026 to $14.3 billion, the first increase after three years of declines. The same report says the market would have fallen again without strike revenue, and AMN Healthcare reported $722 million of strike revenue in the first quarter. SIA expects 3% growth in 2027 with strike activity easing.