As the US tries to cope with the COVID-19 outbreak, employers are aggressively seeking workers with respiratory experience. The share of searches by employers containing the word ‘respiratory’ on resumes uploaded to Indeed have skyrocketed since mid-March. Compared to the beginning of the year, the share of searches for the word ‘respiratory’ by employers grew by over 550% as of April 6. The majority of these searches were for terms related to medical professionals with respiratory experience such as “respiratory therapist” and “respiratory care practitioner.”

Line graph shows the demand for respiratory therapist rises.
Line graph entitled “Demand for respiratory therapist rises”. With a vertical axis ranging from 0-1500, the graph shows respiratory therapist postings per million jobs on Indeed from January through April 6. Up until mid-March, the line was flat. As of April, the line grew 35% relative to the beginning of the year. Captions added post publication.

A pickup in employer demand for respiratory therapists is also evident in job postings on Indeed. Up until mid-March, the share of postings for respiratory therapists was flat this year. But as of April 6th, the share of these postings grew by 35% relative to the beginning of this year. 

Through the COVID-19 crisis, we’ll continue to keep an eye on how employer demand changes within the healthcare sector.

Methodology

Employer searches are searches by employers on resumes uploaded to Indeed. Respiratory searches are defined as those that contain ‘respiratory’ within the search. We define respiratory therapist job postings by titles like ‘respiratory therapist’, ‘senior respiratory therapist’.