While revenue growth may have decelerated as of late and there are some concerns for 2019, healthcare staffing remains a great place to be. That was the message of the Healthcare Staffing Summit keynote presentation today by Tony Gregoire, director of research, the Americas, at Staffing Industry Analysts.

Healthcare temporary staffing revenue is projected to grow by 6% in 2018 compared to 8% this year and 15% in 2016.

“The good news is risk of recession in the near term appears quite low,” Gregoire said. And if the current economic expansion continues to August 2019, it will be the longest in US history. However, “there are some risks in 2019 that have a fair chance of happening.”

Those risks include recession, Medicare/Medicaid cuts and exchange destabilization/repeal.

Given the concerns, SIA estimates a range of revenue change for 2019 of being down by 10% — if all negative factors come into play — to growing by 5%.

Other comments by Gregoire:

• 11 of the 13 fastest-growing US staffing firms this past year were healthcare staffing firms.
• When temporary workers were asked how they first learned about their staffing firms, 40% of healthcare practitioners/workers said a friend or colleague told them about it. That’s a far higher percentage than for temporary workers in other segments such as IT.
• There is a projected surplus of RNs in 2030, but some states will still see shortages, including California, Alaska, Texas and Georgia.