PA: No Longer a White-Hot Profession?
Physician assistant fell out of the top 10 in the newest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) job growth projection report, according to the Jan. 30 issue of AAPA News (not available online yet).
The PA profession dropped from No. 4 last year to No. 30 in the most recent BLS projection for 2006 to 2016. The number of PA jobs is projected to increase by 27% between 2006 and 2016.
According to BLS economist Terry Schau, "Employment growth for the health care sector will not be as rapid as it has been in the past." Schau added that the BLS relied heavily on outside sources for information in preparing the analysis for the 2006-2016 projections. These sources indicate that growth in the demand for health care jobs will begin to slow.
The BLS estimates that there were 66,000 PA jobs in 2006 and there will be 83,000 PA jobs in 2016.
Accordign to the AAPA, there were an estimated 63,600 practicing PAs in the United States at the end of 2006 and more than 68,000 PAs in clinical practice at the beginning of 2008. PA programs currently produce about 4,500 new graduates a year.
Growth of 27% from 2006 to 2016 would roughly project to about 80,700 PAs in 2016.
Link to BLS report