Follow Your Heart to a Caring Career: find employment now in health care and social assistance

All summer long, CareerForce is putting a spotlight on the many employment opportunities in health care and social assistance and encouraging people to “Follow Your Heart to a Caring Career”.

There are more job openings in health care and social assistance than in any other industry in Minnesota. According to the latest Job Vacancy Survey results from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, there were nearly 31,700 job openings in this industry across the state in 2024. That’s by far the most openings of any industry in Minnesota. Of those health care and social assistance job openings, 44% don’t require post-secondary education, 56% require less than a year of experience and the median wage offer for these open positions is $23.07 per hour.

More than 8,000 of the job openings are for Nursing Assistant, Home Health Aide and Personal Care Aide positions. Nearly 90% of these positions don’t require any postsecondary education and 85% require less than a year of experience. The median wage offer for these positions is $18.31 per hour. Once you gain some experience working in these positions, there are often opportunities for advancement, sometimes with employer-paid education or training.

You can start many Caring Career jobs with a high school diploma or equivalent – and some are open to people who haven’t completed high school. Another thing to consider: not all positions in health care and social assistance involve direct patient care. There are also open positions in dining or dietary, housekeeping or maintenance, office work and other positions in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, group homes and other settings.