The commitment to training and continuous development programs will meet the demand for digital skills and specialization in disruptive technologies.
What are the demands of the healthcare industry in 2024?
Every April 7th, World Health Day is commemorated. A date marked on the calendar, since with each passing year it is more necessary to remember and celebrate it.
The WHO Council on Health Economics for All has found that, although at least 140 countries recognize health as a human right in their constitution, only four have developed a strategy on how to finance it.
According to figures from the Ministry of Employment from March 2024, compared to the same month in 2023, in Spain the labor market in the health sector continues with a growth trend of 4%.
At the same time, the number of affiliates remains above two million. The increase compared to February is more than 11,000 workers, led by health activities, with more than 4,000, compared to 3,821 in social services, 2,835 in residential care and 366 in pharma.
The great challenges
Some of the common demands that are already relevant in the health sector in 2024, and that ultimately pose major challenges, are:
- Universal access to health care
Health systems must work to ensure that all people, regardless of location or economic ability, have access to quality health services.
- Innovative healthcare technology
An increase in the adoption and development of artificial intelligence, telemedicine, personalized medicine and connected medical devices is expected. These technologies can improve efficiency, diagnostic accuracy, and access to healthcare.
- Patient-centered care
Health systems are evolving toward an approach that values the patient experience, participation in decision-making, and holistic care.
- Aging population
There is a growing demand for health services tailored to the needs of older people, including long-term care, home care, and chronic disease prevention.
- Mental health
The rise in mental health disorders, exacerbated by events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to increased awareness of the importance of addressing mental health and the need for quality, accessible mental health services.
- Public health and emergency preparedness
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of public health and the need to strengthen emergency preparedness, including response to pandemics, infectious disease outbreaks, and natural disasters.
- Health system sustainability and resilience
Health systems face important problems related to financial sustainability, resource scarcity and resilience to crises, as well as the ability to respond to emergency situations.
The challenges of the health sector in Spain
However, there are important challenges for the sector in our country.
On the one hand, demographic change generates a boom in demand for already existing occupations in sectors such as healthcare or personal care.
According to Randstad’s internal data, nurses and doctors are two of the most in-demand positions for all of 2024 in Spain.
In the case of nursing, professionals are sought who have planning, organization, and leadership skills; and as for doctors, organization, empathy, and ability in interpersonal relationships.
New trends in the healthcare sector
Randstad Research has also provided a new study on the impact of AI on the labor market, in which it concludes that the adoption of this technology could mean the destruction of 2 million jobs, although it will in turn lead to 1.6 million of new occupations due to the opportunities that have arisen, leaving the net potential at 400,000 lost jobs.
It is crucial to highlight that the integration of AI in companies, still in an incipient process, will increase the productivity of 3.24 million jobs (15.9% of the total) until 2033 in the Spanish labor market.
“AI will allow the health sector to reduce the workload of staff and generate greater trust in the relationship with patients.“
Thus, administrative debureaucratization, the digital transformation of processes and increased productivity will be accelerated.
For this reason, requests for technical skills and digital specialization for professionals in the health sector are increasing, with a particular boom in telemedicine.
5G and robotics will also improve remote surgical operations, as well as cutting-edge advances in 3D printing and 3D bioprinting of organs and other parts of the body such as ears, bones, corneas or skin.
In fact, the first tests are already being done in clinical settings.
Sector experts agree that new technologies bring us closer to what is called “5P Medicine”: personalized, predictive, preventive, participatory and population-based, which will mean a paradigm shift in healthcare.
Female leadership and generational replacement
As is the case in other economic activities in the health sector, it is worth noting that female employment is gaining weight in the pharmaceutical industry and, in the third quarter of last year, women represented 56% of the total jobs in the sector.
Male employment prevailed in the activity until 2020, when women began to occupy 50.4% of all jobs, a trend that has accelerated since then and has been accompanied by a decrease in male professionals in the sector.
The pharmaceutical industry also faces a shortage of talent, which adds to the challenge of generational replacement. In parallel, talent considers the value, image and reputation of the companies, entities and organizations where they work to be increasingly important.
In fact, it is very relevant to identify with the companies in which they work. 14% of those surveyed in this report would prefer to be unemployed rather than work for an employer that does not fit their personal values, an aspect that is especially accentuated among the youngest (18% aged 18 to 34).
Regarding generational replacement, the group of employed people aged 35 to 44 has surpassed those aged 45 to 54 since the end of 2021, somewhat alleviating this problem that is common in most sectors. Although the age group between 35 and 44 years accounts for the largest number of workers (35% of the total), 45 years and older accounts for just over 40% of employment in the activity.
Generational replacement is also a fact in the healthcare sector. More than 50% of employment in this area is concentrated in the age groups between 45 years and older.
The group of employed people aged 35 to 44 is beginning to be surpassed by those aged 24 to 34 in the last quarter, offering some light to this employment situation that is common in most sectors. The year-on-year loss in the second quarter of 2023 of the 16 to 24-year-old group accentuates this problem.