Manpower Needs in the Field of Aging: The Nursing Home Industry. AOA Occasional Papers in Gerontology, No. 1.

Employment in nursing homes is projected to increase from 583,000 in 1973 to 1,036,000 in 1985. Substantially more workers are expected to be employed in nearly all occupations. The projected growth of 78% is faster than that expected in any segment of the health industry. Most nursing home employees are service workers. Two of these occupational classifications, practical nurses and nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants, accounted for over half of total employment in 1973. For many occupations in nursing homes, annual openings resulting from the need to replace workers who leave the labor force are expected to be more significant than those resulting from employment growth. An analysis of employment growth and the supply-demand situation for key occupations in the nursing home industry indicated that nursing homes should be able to meet their manpower needs provided that wages, benefits, hours, etc., will be competitive in the job market. An appendix describes the methods used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to project manpower requirements in key nursing home occupations based on its program for developing projections for the entire economy's industrial and occupational structure. (JT)