Health industry workers rose 3% to 1.07 million in Q2 amid population aging

The number of workers in the health industry, including pharmaceuticals and medical devices, continued to grow in the second quarter of this year.

Notably, the industry accounted for about 89.4 percent of newly created jobs, reflecting the growing demand for a health and medical workforce as the population ages.

The Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) released the health industry's employment trend for the second quarter of 2024 on Tuesday.

The number of health industry workers is based on the number of net employees in employment insurance-covered workplaces in manufacturing and service industries, including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, cosmetics, and medical services by the Korean Standard Industrial Classification (KSIC).

According to the data, the number of health industry workers in the second quarter of 2024 was 1,073,000, up 3.0 percent year-on-year. The growth rate of the health industry workers was 1.4 percentage points higher than the 1.6 percent growth rate of the total number of workers in all industries.

Of these, the number of workers in the health manufacturing industry (pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and cosmetics) totaled 180,000, up 2.5 percent from a year earlier. The cosmetics industry marked the highest growth rate of 3.4 percent, followed by medical devices with a year-on-year increase of 2.4 percent, and pharmaceuticals with a 2.2 percent increase.

More specifically, the number of workers in the medical device industry in the second quarter of this year was 62,000, up 2.4 percent from last year. The most significant increases in the number of workers were recorded in 'radiological devices manufacturing (up 4.8 percent) and dental devices manufacturing (up 3.3 percent), which are related to the top export items. However, the number of companies and workers manufacturing eyeglasses and eyeglass lenses decreased the most among all health industry sectors, recording negative growth rates of 2.5 percent and 3.2 percent.

The number of workers in the pharmaceutical industry increased by 2.2 percent year-on-year to 82,000 in the second quarter, with the highest growth rate of 2.9 percent in the manufacturing of finished pharmaceutical products. This was followed by biologics manufacturing (up 0.9 percent) and medicinal compounds and antibiotics manufacturing (up 0.6 percent). However, the numbers of companies and workers in the herbal medicine manufacturing industry declined by 1.1 percent and 1.8 percent after peaking in the fourth quarter of last year.

The number of people employed in medical services remained on the rise, with 890,000 workers, up 3.1 percent from last year. That was 1.2 percentage points higher than the 1.9 percent growth rate for all services. Medical service workers accounted for 82.9 percent of the health industry workers.

Oriental medicine hospitals had the highest growth rate (up 7.7 percent), followed by general practitioners (up 5.5 percent) and radiology and pathology clinics (up 3.7 percent).

In the second quarter, 11,249 new jobs were created in the health industry. The most significant number of new jobs was in healthcare, including healthcare practitioners, at 10,052, accounting for 89.4 percent of all new health industry jobs. This was followed by 447 new jobs in pharmaceuticals, 437 in medical devices, and 313 in cosmetics.

By occupation, “health and medical workers,” which refers to first responders, hygienists, opticians, medical recorders, nursing assistants, masseurs, and other health and medical workers, accounted for the largest number of new jobs at 4,120 (36.6 percent).

Following them were 2,394 (21.3 percent) new jobs for nurses, 1,601 (14.2 percent) for doctors, oriental medicine practitioners, and dentists, 1,044 (9.3 percent) for medical technicians, therapists, and rehabilitators, and 388 (3.4 percent) for manufacturing workers.

“As the global demand for K-beauty and the demand for medical services due to an aging society continues to increase, employment growth has been centered on the cosmetics industry and medical services, driving the overall increase in health industry employment,” said Lee Byung-kwan, head of the Biohealth Innovation Planning Group at the KHIDI.

Lee emphasized the need to foster specialized human resources to respond to rapid changes in the health industry, such as revitalizing health industry exports and addressing the aging population.

”To support this, we will strive to analyze detailed health industry employment trends,” he added.