The health care and social assistance sector has been a main driver of Ohios job growth, and it could remain that way since the sector will lead the nation in employment gains in the next decade, according to new labor projections from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Health care and social assistance is projected to create five million new jobs nationwide by 2022, the bureau said. Nearly half of the 30 projected fastest-growing U.S. occupations are in health care.

Health care and social assistance employs more Ohio workers than any other sector, and the state more heavily relies on these areas for jobs than most of the country.

Continued health care growth will translate into more jobs for Ohio workers, according to some groups.

At this point, there is no reason to expect that the growth in health care and social assistance jobs will slow in Ohio, said Benjamin Johnson, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

But some labor experts said they believe the governments employment projections are inflated, and hiring will have to slow down because otherwise it will outpace demand for medical services and providers will not be able to bring rising costs under control.

If health care continues to grow as rapidly as it has in the recent past, then you really have to be concerned about our ability to pay for it and the effectiveness of any sort of health care reform, said Edward Hill, dean and professor at the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University.

Ohios health care and social assistance sector has been a powerhouse of hiring for years, with payrolls increasing annually since at least 1990, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The sector employed 765,200 Ohio workers in November, which was down slightly from the summer of 2013, but up 10,600 from November 2012, the data show.

The U.S. recession officially ended in June 2009, but the sector continued adding jobs during the economic downturn.

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Ohio, U.S. expects major job growth in health care