Is Healthcare Support & Healthcare Administration a Good Job Market in the United States?

Executive Verdict

Market rating: balanced | Confidence: High

Nationally, this is a workable but selective market. Private Education and Health Services employment rose 1.8771% year over year in September 2026, faster than total nonfarm payrolls at 0.3128%, and BLS reported 786,000 job openings in health care and social assistance in August.[1][2][3] But the category-specific picture is cooler than the broad healthcare headline: Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows Healthcare Support & Healthcare Administration employment up 0.6% year over year while active postings are down 3.5%.[4][5] That points to steady underlying need, but fewer easy wins than the word "healthcare" alone might suggest.

Best positioned: Candidates who can prove patient care, phlebotomy, vital signs, medical terminology, infection control, specimen collection, or HIPAA skills and who are willing to work on-site have the best odds right now.[6][7]

Main caution: Do not mistake strong long-run home-care demand for an easy national search today; BLS projects home health and personal care aide employment to grow 18%, but current category postings are still down year over year and remote options are scarce.[8][5][6]

What Changed Recently

• Private Education and Health Services reached 28.005 million jobs in September 2026 and was up 1.8771% year over year, while total nonfarm payrolls grew 0.3128%.[1][2]: Healthcare-related employers are still expanding faster than the broader US labor market, which supports a decent floor of demand for support and admin roles.
• Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows Healthcare Support & Healthcare Administration employment up 0.6% year over year in September 2026, but active postings down 3.5%.[4][5]: The work still needs to be done, but employers appear to be opening fewer seats, so resume fit and application speed matter more than last year.
• BLS JOLTS reported 786,000 openings in the US health care and social assistance industry in August 2026, with a 3.3% openings rate; this is an industry-wide signal rather than an occupation-specific count.[3]: There is still plenty of national hiring volume if you are flexible on employer type, schedule, and setting.
• Consumer prices were up about 3.0% year over year in August, and average hourly earnings for total private workers were also up about 3.0% year over year in September.[16][17]: For lower-paid support jobs, real pay is not obviously improving, so small hourly differences, shift premiums, and mileage or weekend add-ons matter.
• Training pipelines are still being expanded through a tuition-free CNA program in Texas, a paid clinical medical assistant apprenticeship in North Carolina, and Workforce Pell-backed clinical medical assistant rollout in Indiana.[11][12][13]: Career switchers and re-entrants have more viable entry ramps than in many white-collar fields, especially if they can train quickly and work on-site.

What This Means for You

Entry-Level Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate. There is meaningful hiring volume, but the easiest-to-enter jobs are mostly on-site, often shift-based, and not the best paid.

Best target: On-site roles in hospitals, home health, long-term care, and medical practices, where about 90% of postings are entry level and the largest posting shares sit in hospitals and health care and broader healthcare employers.[20][10]

Biggest mistake: Targeting remote healthcare admin jobs first, or sending one generic resume to CNA, medical assistant, patient access, and home health roles.

Next step: Add CPR or BLS if you do not already have it, and make sure your resume explicitly shows patient care, vital signs, phlebotomy, medical terminology, infection control, specimen collection, and HIPAA where relevant to your background.[9][7]

Mid-Career Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate to high. You have good odds if your experience is directly transferable, but better-paying admin-heavy jobs are more selective than frontline support roles.

Best target: Experienced medical assistant, clinic operations, patient access, and team-lead roles inside large health systems and home health groups such as Trinity Health, EmmUcare Home Health, HCA Healthcare, Sanford Health, Uhs, and Signature HealthCARE, LLC.[19]

Biggest mistake: Leaning on a generic office-admin resume that hides healthcare-specific workflow ownership, throughput, compliance, and patient-facing experience.

Next step: Rebuild your resume around measurable workflow ownership and the skills employers already request most often, then apply quickly because the typical active posting has been open around 29 days.[7][14]

Career Switchers

Difficulty: Moderate. This category is more accessible than many professional fields, but employers still want role-specific proof that you can work safely and on-site.

Best target: Paid apprenticeship and short-term training routes into clinical medical assistant or CNA work rather than trying to jump straight into better-paid admin titles.[11][12][13]

Biggest mistake: Trying to enter through abstract "healthcare administration" titles without recent healthcare exposure, a credential, or a clear patient-service story.

Next step: Pick one lane in the next month—CNA, clinical medical assistant, or patient access support—and complete the fastest relevant training or CPR/BLS step tied to that lane.[11][9][12][13]

Salary Reality

moderate pay broad access

Direct BLS wage data says this is still mostly a modest-pay category: healthcare support occupations had a $38,340 median in 2025, with a $34,320 25th percentile, a $45,930 75th percentile, and a $54,230 90th percentile.[21][22][23][24] Within that, nursing assistants were at $42,260 median, home health and personal care aides at $35,800 median, and medical assistants at $46,120 mean.[25][8][26] Posting-based measures run higher: Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows a mean offered salary of about $58,982 on new openings in September 2026, and the Callings.ai posting sample centers on about $60k to $74k, likely because those measures include higher-paid administration and supervisory jobs along with frontline support roles.[27][28]

If you are targeting CNA, aide, or entry medical assistant work, expect pay nearer the government occupation benchmarks than the broad top-end posted ranges. The richer posted bands are more plausible when the job blends operations, supervision, specialty procedures, or harder-to-fill schedules.

The upside is access: among postings that state an education requirement, high school diploma, GED, and certificate pathways dominate.[29] The downside is that the best-paying roles are less common, mostly on-site, and usually require more experience or a cleaner credential signal.[6][20][9]

Best-paying path: The strongest pay in this category tends to sit in administration-heavy or supervisory openings and in combined clinical-plus-admin roles, which helps explain why posted salary bands run above the typical frontline wage benchmarks.[27][28]

Caution: Do not read the broad posted salary band as the normal pay for every sub-role. Frontline aide pay still sits far lower in BLS data, with home health and personal care aide earnings ranging from below $27,040 for the lowest-paid 10% to above $45,040 for the highest-paid 10%.[8]

Where the Opportunities Are Concentrated

In the current national posting sample, demand is concentrated in provider settings rather than remote back-office work. Hospitals and health care account for about 55% of postings, broader healthcare employers for about 35%, and the rest is split across health care services & hospitals and medical practices at about 5% each.[10] This is also an overwhelmingly site-based category, with about 95% or more of postings on-site and less than 5% hybrid or remote.[6] Openings are spread across many employers rather than dominated by one national brand, which is good for resilience but means you have to search broadly.[15] The most consistently active employers in the sample include Trinity Health and EmmUcare Home Health at more than 350 postings each, plus HCA Healthcare, Sanford Health, Uhs, and Signature HealthCARE, LLC at more than 200 to more than 250 postings.[19] Structurally, the strongest long-run demand sits in home-based and long-term support work: BLS projects home health and personal care aide employment to grow 18% from 2025 to 2035, with about 760,500 openings per year.[8]

• Hospitals and large health systems (high): This is the largest opportunity pool, with the broadest mix of medical assistant, patient access, aide, and support jobs, plus the biggest named employers in the sample.[19][10]
• Home health and long-term support settings (high): This segment benefits from the strongest long-run growth signal in the bundle and continued workforce-building efforts, making it a strong path for people open to field-based or physically demanding work.[30][8]
• Medical practices and front-office care settings (moderate): These roles make up a smaller share of current postings, but they are useful for candidates who want steadier schedules and a bridge into patient access or clinic operations work.[10]
• Remote healthcare administration (limited): This is the weakest lane in the current sample because remote and hybrid shares are both under 5%.[6]

Where to focus: Focus first on large provider employers and home-based or long-term-care settings, then use medical-practice and patient-access roles as a secondary lane if you want steadier daytime admin work.

Skills and Credentials Worth Pursuing

• Patient care (table stakes): It is the most common hard skill in the posting sample, appearing in about 30% of postings.[7]
• Vital signs monitoring (table stakes): It appears in about 20% of postings and is also part of the training base BLS describes for aide-type roles.[7][8]
• Phlebotomy (differentiator): About 20% of postings ask for it, which makes it one of the clearest ways to stand out from general patient-service applicants.[7]
• Medical terminology (differentiator): It shows up in about 15% of postings and helps both clinical-support and patient-access applicants prove healthcare fluency.[7]
• HIPAA compliance (table stakes): HIPAA appears in about 10% of postings and acts as a trust signal for employers hiring into patient-facing or records-adjacent workflows.[7]
• CPR / Basic Life Support (BLS) (differentiator): CPR and BLS are among the most commonly requested certifications in postings, and BLS notes that CPR and first aid can be required for some aide pathways.[9][8]
• Infection control (table stakes): It appears in about 10% of postings and is part of the formal training base BLS describes for aide roles.[7][8]
• Medical assistant certification (premium): It appears among the most commonly required certifications in postings, and current apprenticeship and Workforce Pell examples show employers and colleges are actively building clinical medical assistant pipelines.[9][12][13]

Adjacent Roles to Consider

• Phlebotomist (bridge): Many healthcare support postings already ask for phlebotomy and specimen collection, so this is a natural move for medical assistants and patient care techs.[7]
• Licensed Practical/Vocational Nurse (LPN/LVN) (pivot): This is a realistic next step for CNAs and experienced support workers who want a clearer wage ladder and more clinical responsibility.
• Pharmacy Technician (bridge): It suits candidates who like medication workflow, patient service, and compliance work more than bedside care.
• Front-Desk Coordinator or Scheduler outside healthcare (both): Patient access and clinic-front-desk skills transfer well if you need more daytime-stable administrative work.

30 / 60 / 90-Day Plan

First 30 Days

• Pick one lane and rewrite your resume for it: direct care, medical assistant, or patient access. Do not use one resume for all three.
• Add CPR or BLS if missing, and make sure your resume explicitly shows patient care, vital signs, phlebotomy, medical terminology, infection control, specimen collection, and HIPAA where truthfully relevant.[9][7]
• Prioritize on-site employers first, especially hospitals, home health, and medical practices, because about 95% or more of current postings are on-site.[10][6]
• If you lack recent experience, apply immediately to free or paid pipeline options such as CNA or clinical medical assistant programs rather than waiting for employers to overlook the gap.[11][12][13]

Days 31-60

• Track response rates by lane. If patient-access applications outperform aide applications, narrow your search instead of spraying more resumes.
• Build a quantified experience sheet with visit volume, registration accuracy, insurance verification, vitals, phlebotomy, specimen collection, or medication-support tasks, depending on your background.[7]
• Expand to evening, weekend, float-pool, home health, and long-term-care options if your first-wave search is too narrow.
• Apply faster. In this market, letting postings age hurts you because the typical active posting has been open around 29 days already.[14]

Days 61-90

• If you are still not landing interviews, change the lane rather than only changing the employer list: move toward phlebotomy, pharmacy tech, or LPN prep depending on your tolerance for training time.
• Re-rank employers by response, commute, and schedule reality. In a fragmented market, breadth beats loyalty to one brand.[15]
• Negotiate on the full package, not only base wage: shift differentials, mileage, tuition help, weekend premiums, and training support matter when inflation and wage growth are running at roughly the same pace.[16][17]
• If you need sponsorship or remote work, treat those as special-case searches from the start because sponsorship appears in less than 5% of postings that state a policy and remote openings are also under 5%.[18][6]

Methodology and Confidence

This September 2026 report was generated on October 10, 2026. Latest direct national data: October 2026. Some items are proxy evidence; latest proxy data: September 2026.

Confidence: Overall confidence: High. This report is supported by recent government labor data plus current hiring and salary signals.

Limitations

• This category combines varied sub-roles, from home health aides and CNAs to medical assistants and patient-access or clinic-support jobs, so no single pay or demand figure describes every path equally well.
• The most recent occupation wage benchmarks mostly refer to 2025, while hiring, payroll, and posting signals are from 2026, so pay and demand can move on different timetables.
• Several September 2026 government year-over-year changes are preliminary and may be revised in later releases.
• The Callings.ai job database is a partial, deduplicated sample of online postings, so direction of demand, leading employer names, and skill patterns are more reliable than exact counts or exact employer shares.
• National figures average over very different metro markets, and the metro reports for this category show how far those markets can differ.

References

1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-09 · data.bls.gov
2. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-09 · data.bls.gov
3. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey News Release - 2026 M08 Results · 2026-09 · bls.gov
4. Reveliolabs. Employment — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-09 · reveliolabs.com
5. Reveliolabs. Job Openings — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-09 · reveliolabs.com
6. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
7. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
8. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Home Health and Personal Care Aides · 2026-08 · bls.gov
9. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
10. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
11. Krgv. Free CNA training program launches at Rio Valley College to fill local healthcare gap · 2026-09 · krgv.com
12. Wwaytv3. New medical assistant apprenticeship launches in Brunswick County - WWAYTV3 · 2026-09 · wwaytv3.com
13. Ccdaily. Rolling out Workforce Pell - Community College Daily · 2026-09 · ccdaily.com
14. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
15. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
16. Federal Reserve Economic Data. Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average · 2026-08 · fred.stlouisfed.org
17. Federal Reserve Economic Data. Average Hourly Earnings of All Employees, Total Private · 2026-09 · fred.stlouisfed.org
18. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
19. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
20. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
21. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
22. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
23. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
24. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
25. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nursing Assistants and Orderlies · 2026-08 · bls.gov
26. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Table 1. National employment and wage data from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey by occupation, May 2025 - 2025 A01 Results · 2026-05 · bls.gov
27. Reveliolabs. Salaries — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-09 · reveliolabs.com
28. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
29. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
30. Cms. Trump Administration Announces $11.7 Million to Expand Access, Improve Patient Care Facilities, and Strengthen Workforce Capacity in Nursing Homes and Long-Term Care System Across Rural Vermont · 2026-09 · cms.gov
31. Reveliolabs. Mass-layoff Notices — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-09 · reveliolabs.com
32. Warntracker. FedEx Lays Off 197 Workers — 3 locations WARN Notice September 2026 · 2026-09 · warntracker.com
33. Layoffiq. King Fuji Ranch Layoffs: 286 Jobs in WA – 2026 · 2026-09 · layoffiq.com
34. Warntracker. National Express Transit Corp. (dba Kiessling of Attleboro) Lays Off 162 Workers — Taunton and Wareham, MA, MA WARN Notice September 2026 · 2026-09 · warntracker.com
35. Warntracker. Verizon Lays Off 89 Workers — 2 locations WARN Notice September 2026 · 2026-09 · warntracker.com
36. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-09 · data.bls.gov

Healthcare Support & Healthcare Administration job market by metro, September 2026

The latest monthly report for each metro. Postings and pay come from the Callings.ai job database (active postings over the last 90 days), hedged because the sample is partial.