The global Coronavirus pandemic is shutting down international markets and economies and flummoxing governments and – and healthcare companies are already staffing up to manage patients and the rebound from the outbreak.
At a time when market prognosticators are seeing short-term unemployment numbers to the US as high as 30%, there remain quite a few industries looking to staff up when so few are even able to forecast viability. This includes industries like e-commerce and traditional brick-and-mortar retail, social media, payment and telehealth apps and the makers of medical devices or pharmaceuticals being used to treat COVID-19.
One of the US health insurance industry’s leaders, Cigna ($NYSE:CI) began ramping up with more hires in the beginning of 2020, which hasn’t subsided. Job postings are up 48% from recent 2019 lows.
Unfortunately, that comes at a time when shares are down about 36% to start the year. However, it’s especially notable that Cigna’s job postings are at levels not ordinarily reached on a multi-year timeframe (not shown).
Humana ($NYSE:HUM) shares have been hammered for about 40% losses so far in 2020.
But, that’s not slowing down its staffing plan. Others (like Centene – not shown) in the space have displayed a cyclical hiring trend, so at the end of 2019, job postings were near annual lows. But already, Centene has started staffing up in 2020 and Humana is another example of a healthcare company growing in spite of market losses. Humana job postings are up 28% so far this year.
Source: Thinknum Media