Wyoming Labor Force Trends
August 2025 | Volume 62, No. 8
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Youth Working in Health Care & Social Assistance in Wyoming
by: Matthew Halama, Senior Economist
Beginning in 2009, Wyoming saw an extended decline of youth working in the state. As illustrated in Figure 1, the number of youth ages 15-19 working in Wyoming decreased from 29,112 in 2008 to 23,242 in 2009 (-5,870, or 20.2%). Since 2000, the year with the fewest teens working in Wyoming was 2016 with 20,649. The Research & Planning (R&P) section of the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services has produced a variety of literature looking at many facets of youth experience in Wyoming’s labor market, such as driver’s license attainment, educational attainment, industry of employment, wages earned, and more.
In recent years, however, the number of youth working in Wyoming has increased. In particular, the health care & social industry has seen an increase in young workers. The purpose of this article is to identify the specific areas within health care & social assistance that have seen an increase in youth employment.
This article is divided into four parts. The first part reviews prior literature on youth employment in health care & social assistance, while the second section goes through the methodology, namely where the data came from and how they were collected that led to its analysis. The third section deals with the results of the data analysis, while the fourth part presents some conclusions.
Literature Review
Typically, one may not expect to find youth employed in health care & social assistance. However, recent initiatives have sought to change that. The Global Health Workforce Network (2020) produced a report titled, “Youth and Decent Work in the Health and Social Care Sector.” Their focus was on interventions and solutions to address what they felt were current challenges with youth employment in health care. Researchers initially reviewed 746 articles by title and abstract and narrowed that to 140 that were reviewed in full text; of those, 102 articles were included in the report. Recommendations included mentoring opportunities, flexible hours, family friendly policies, and having reporting mechanisms, support for victims and zero tolerance policies, and exploration of diversified remuneration schemes.
The Federal Register Vol. 83 No. 188 (Department of Health and Human Services, 2018) had a proposed rule for the Department of Labor 29 CFR Part 570 titled, “Expanding Employment, Training, and Apprenticeship Opportunities for 16- and 17- Year-Olds in Health Care Occupations Under the Fair Labor Standards Act” by modifying hazardous occupations order (HO) 7. Initially, HO 7 was issued in 1946 and prohibited youth from working in occupations involving the operation of power-driven patient lifts. Fast forward 72 years later, and the advances in technology led to a revision of this rule, as 16- and 17-year-olds are often apt with modern technology and using a power-driven patient lift is simple and less taxing on the body than the alternative of manually lifting patients.
These articles highlight different solutions to encourage youth employment in health care & social assistance. Global Health Workforce Network focused on policy solutions to attract young workers, whereas the federal register noted a bipartisan Congress wanted to overhaul a regulation that impeded the hiring of teens ages 16-17.
Methodology and Results
R&P collects and maintains quarterly wage record data through the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system from 1992 to present, which includes approximately 92% of Wyoming jobs. The variables for this research were distinct social security number (ssn), quarterly wages, NAICS code, age, and year. The quarterly wages variable was summed and grouped by ssn and year to create a yearly wages variable for each individual in the database. The NAICS code was filtered to only include those who worked in NAICS 62: health care & social assistance. The age variable was broken out into the following age groups: 15-19, 20-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, and 65+. The yearly data used is from 1992-2023.
Results
This section discusses employment within health care & social assistance at the subsector and selected detailed industry levels as identified by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). A sample of the NAICS hierarchy can be found in Box 1.
In this section, the terms teens and youth refers to individuals ages 15-19. Also, it should be noted that the overwhelming majority of teens working in health care & social assistants were female (1,692, or 80.6% of the total) compared to male (407, or 19.4%). The full data discussed in this report, along with time series graphics for 2001 to 2023, will be published online.
Health Care & Social Assistance (NAICS 62)
In 2023, Wyoming had 2,099 youth working in health care & social assistance; from 2001 to 2023, that number ebbed and flowed (see Figure 2). During that period, the lowest number of youth working in health care & social assistance was 1,309 in 2014, while the largest number was 2,142 in 2008. The number of female youth working in health care & social assistance was greatest in 2023 (1,692), with the largest number of male youth employed in 2001 (523; see Figure 3).
Ambulatory Health Care Services (NAICS 621)
Within ambulatory health care services, the largest number of youth were found working in offices of specialty therapists (128; see Table 1). In addition, 114 youth were found working in offices of dentists, followed by offices of physicians (except mental health specialists; 68) and home health care services (46).
Hospitals (NAICS 622)
In 2023, general medical & surgical hospitals (NAICS 622110) employed 275 female and 81 male teens, for a total of 356. This was the largest number of teens working in hospitals since 2008, when there were 386. Youth employment plummeted in 2008 for females before rebounding in 2018; employment for males bottomed out in 2013 before climbing again in 2018.
Nursing & Residential Care Facilities (NAICS 623)
The nursing & residential care facilities subsector had 530 teen employees in 2023, or 25.3% of all teens working in health care & social assistance. In 2023, the detailed industry with the largest number of teen workers was nursing care facilities with 354, followed by assisted living facilities for the elderly with 109 and continuing care retirement communities with 45.
Social Assistance (NAICS 624)
In 2023, nearly half of all youth working in health care & social assistance (934, or 44.5% ) worked in the social assistance subsector. Of those 934 youth, 530 were employed in child care services, 179 were employed in services for the elderly & persons with disabilities, 137 were working in child care & youth services, and 57 were employed in vocational rehabilitation services. Female and male youth were both found to be largely concentrated in child care services, with 489 and 41, respectively, in 2023.
In 2023, the largest number of youth working in health care & social assistance were found in the social assistance subsector. Within this subsector, youth worked in detailed industries such as child care services, services for the elderly & persons with disabilities, child care & youth services, and vocational rehabilitation services. It is worth noting that the other health care subsectors are largely staffed by those with medical credentials that specialize in the care of those with medical infirmities, which would prohibit teens from working in those types of jobs.
Future research on this topic could look at each cohort by year to see if individuals working in health care & social assistance as teens stayed in that industry and made a career of it.
References
Global Health Workforce Network. (2020, January). Youth and decent work in the health and social care sector: An evidence synthesis. Retrieved July 23, 2025, from https://tinyurl.com/y88ndhdv
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2018, September 20). National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities; notice of closed meeting. Retrieved July 23, 2025, from https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-09-27/html/2018-20984.htm
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