The conventional wisdom long has been that health jobs always are going to be in demand because people always are going to get sick.

Through the recession, the health care industry fared better than many others both nationally and in the Central Valley. In Stanislaus County, the number of health care jobs has grown every year since 2009.

While hiring has slowed, especially in the past year, many in the field see it poised to continue to grow and possibly thrive as President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act begins to take effect.

"We have seen a slowdown, we have seen some students have to go outside of acute-care facilities," said Lisa Riggs, director of the associate degree nursing program at Modesto Junior College. "But there are jobs. Jobs in long-term care, in clinics, some of them go to the jails or the prisons. People are getting jobs in a variety of areas, not simply in the larger hospitals."

Riggs said that before the recession, it took about four to five months for all the students from the program to find employment after graduation. Now it takes about a year for all of the graduating class to find work.

Modesto resident E.C. Mitchell made a career switch to health care recently after 20-plus years as an auto mechanic. Since graduating in April, the 41-year-old was hired as a registered nurse at Doctors Medical Center, his first choice.

"I was sure hoping I would find something, but I know it's not as easy to find work as it was even two years ago," said Mitchell, who started work in July. "Sometimes you do have to go a little further out or do something else from what you ideally have in mind. But there are jobs out there."

Mitchell, who was his class representative at MJC, said of the 63 who graduated with him, only a handful still are searching for work. Others found jobs at Doctors, Memorial Medical Center and nursing facilities like Casa de Modesto and Evergreen Nursing & Rehabilitation Care Center.

In the past four years, the health care industry had added almost 2,000 jobs in Stanislaus County. A lot of the growth came from the opening of the Kaiser Modesto Medical Center in October 2008.

Corwin Harper, senior vice president and area manager for Kaiser Permanente Central Valley Service Area, said the new hospital has added more than 600 staff and more than 100 doctors since opening, bringing the total number of employees close to 1,000.

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Those in health care industry say valley jobs are still growing