November 15, 2021 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Nonprofits saw a big jump in hiring in October, expanding employment by 44,576 jobs, according to estimates from Johns Hopkins University. That marks a post-pandemic high point for nonprofits, with charities recovering an estimated 70 percent of the 1.6 million U.S. nonprofit jobs initially lost when Covid-19 swept across the country in 2020.
The report projects it will be at least August or September 2022 before nonprofits surpass pre-pandemic employment levels.
“While it took 17 months to reach this milestone, it is a hopeful sign that — barring a major resurgence of the pandemic over the winter months — the sector is on track to return to full employment within the year,” reads the report from the university’s Center for Civil Society Studies.
October’s nonprofit job gains were driven by big hiring numbers at health-care and educational groups. Health-care nonprofits expanded employment with 16,159 new jobs in October, followed by educational groups, which added 12,060. Gains were also seen among arts and entertainment groups, which added 3,243 jobs, and social-assistance groups, which added 3,987.
Not all causes saw job growth: Religious, grant-making, and civic groups reported a collective loss of 1,793 positions in October.
Nonprofit arts groups remain the most affected by pandemic-era job cuts employing 47,617 fewer people — 13.4 percent less — than in February 2020. Employment at educational nonprofits is down 6.1 percent from the pre-pandemic level of slightly more than 2 million jobs. Religious, grant-making, and civic nonprofits — a broad category that includes churches, foundations, and political-advocacy groups, among others — are down 5.1 percent from February 2020 levels, when they employed 818,562 workers. Social-assistance nonprofits, which employed an estimated 1.5 million workers in February 2020, are down 3.7 percent. Health-care nonprofits are down 3 percent from pre-pandemic employment highs of 6.7 million jobs.
Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies estimates nonprofit employment levels using periodically updated Department of Labor data on the share of the nonprofit and for-profit work forces.
