Training students to fill badly needed jobs when they graduate will help everyone for years to come.
BLOOMBERG
America’s health-care system was experiencing a staffing crisis long before anyone heard the word “Covid,” but the pandemic supercharged it, by leading to many resignations and early retirements. Today, the system is more short-staffed than ever, even as it faces its next big shock: an aging population. Unless we get serious about addressing the shortage of qualified health-care workers, the quality of medical care will suffer, and its cost will rise.
By 2030, all baby boomers will be 65 and older, and their longer life expectancies mean that the need for medical care will continue to rise. Yet there are currently about 2 million unfilled health-care jobs. These include medical assistants, respiratory therapists, health information technicians and other roles — and an additional 2 million new jobs are expected by 2031, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
We cannot expect that the market will solve the labor shortage on its own. A big part of the reason hospitals and other health-care providers cannot fill these jobs is that college graduates often look elsewhere for jobs, and high school graduates often are not prepared for them, because the jobs require levels of education and training that high schools do not provide.
This is a problem not only for health-care systems, but for many young adults, too. Wages for high school graduates are often too low for them to save much money, especially for buying homes. This leaves many who wish to begin working upon graduation with an unappealing choice: Go to college and take on debt, or face severely restricted career prospects. Many of those who choose college don’t graduate and are left with loans that impede their ability to save and become homeowners.
Meanwhile, the current 2 million job openings in health care offer median starting salaries as high as $70,000, as well as opportunities for growth and advancement. So why aren’t American high schools preparing students for these jobs?
