Delaware Health Force

Healthcare Labor Statistics Viewer

Delaware Health Force
Regional Map →
As of Jun 25, 2026
Sources: BLS OEWS · Census LODES · Census CBP · Census ACS · DELPROS

BLS employment vs. DELPROS licensed providers — why they differ: BLS monthly employment figures are sample-based estimates. DELPROS data are exact counts.

BLS counts people employed in an occupation (employer survey); DELPROS counts people with an active Delaware professional license. Large gaps are common because many healthcare workers (nursing assistants, medical assistants, pharmacy technicians, and others) are included in BLS employment but do not hold a Delaware license; some licensees are retired or not currently practicing; one person may hold multiple license types counted separately by occupation; and county/ZIP employment is estimated by allocating state BLS totals while DELPROS uses license practice addresses.

Employment (2026) — Delaware

119,414 ALL Healthcare Aligned Occupations

Source: BLS OEWS (state) + Census LODES workplace allocation

Median Salary — Delaware

$76,245 /yr · ALL Healthcare Aligned Occupations

Source: BLS OES (state) + Census CBP payroll allocation (county)

Licensed Providers — Delaware

37,177 2026 licensed and certified providers

Source: DELPROS (Delaware Division of Professional Regulation via Salesforce)

Provider Ratio — Delaware

36.96 per 1,000 residents 1 : 27 patients

37,177 providers / 1,005,872 population

ALL Healthcare Aligned Occupations Distribution

All Healthcare Aligned Occupations AND Licensed/Certified by County CSV

Gender

Census ACS = statewide workforce · DELPROS = licensed in Delaware

Age Distribution 31.1% near retirement

Race & Ethnicity 40.7% minority

Source: Census ACS (statewide)

All Healthcare by Region CSV

Region Employment Licensed Population Per 1K Ratio
New Castle 32,562 22,769 573,030 39.73 1:25
Kent 8,606 6,748 185,043 36.47 1:27
Sussex 9,189 9,376 247,799 37.84 1:26

Employment Trend & Forecast — All Healthcare, Delaware CSV

Historical Forecast

Wage Trend & Forecast — All Healthcare, Delaware CSV

Historical Forecast

Source: BLS OES annual state files. Historical: real BLS p25 / median / p75 wages, 2020–2024. Forecast: linear projection from historical trend.

Job Postings Trend — All Healthcare, Delaware

Job Postings 60 Day — All Healthcare, Delaware

Active Job Listings 60 Day — All Healthcare, Delaware

Methodology: Employment comes from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) state file, allocated to counties using Census LODES workplace flows. Wages come from BLS OES annual state files (P25 / median / P75), allocated to counties using Census County Business Patterns (CBP) payroll-per-worker ratios. Licensed providers come from the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation (DELPROS) via Salesforce, mapped to SOC occupation codes through the NUCC taxonomy crosswalk. ZIP-level provider counts use License_Parcel address data. Population comes from Census ACS 5-Year estimates (B01003) at state, county, ZIP, and tract levels. Provider-to-population ratios divide licensed provider counts by total population. Demographics (gender, age, race) come from Census ACS 1-Year PUMS microdata, weighted by person weights (PWGTP). These reflect the statewide workforce profile, not Delaware-specific licensed providers. ZIP-level employment uses Census LODES WAC block-level workplace data aggregated to ZCTAs. Census tract employment uses the same LODES data aggregated to tracts. HPSA designations and the DHF-collected job postings from Delaware hospitals will be ingested in a later phase. Last refreshed Jun 16, 2026.

Why BLS employment and DELPROS licensed counts differ

These two metrics answer different questions and should not be expected to match.

BLS employment (purple) comes from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey. It estimates how many people are working in an occupation in Delaware. County, ZIP, and census tract figures allocate the state total using Census LODES workplace shares — they are relative estimates, not independent local surveys.

DELPROS licensed providers (gold) counts active Delaware professional licenses with a Delaware practice address, mapped to SOC occupations through the NUCC taxonomy crosswalk.

Common reasons for large differences:

• Unlicensed occupations — About two-thirds of tracked healthcare occupations do not require a Delaware license. BLS reports employment for these roles; DELPROS shows no licensed count.

• Licensed but not practicing — A person may hold an active license without currently working in that role, or may practice only out of state.

• Multi-license holders — When viewing a specific occupation, someone with both an RN and NP license is counted in each occupation. The All Healthcare view deduplicates by person.

• Geography — BLS sub-state employment is estimated; DELPROS uses license parcel ZIP codes. Providers who commute from PA/MD/NJ may appear in statewide totals but not in a Delaware ZIP or county breakdown.

• Scope — BLS counts all jobs in an occupation statewide; DELPROS only includes occupations that map to a Delaware license type.

How employment is estimated

State-level employment comes directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey — these are real counts, not estimates.

Sub-state breakdowns (county, ZIP, census tract) are estimated by allocating the state total using Census LODES (Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics) workplace data. LODES counts jobs at the census block level; we aggregate blocks to each geography and use the resulting shares to distribute state employment proportionally.

This means county/ZIP/tract employment figures reflect relative workplace concentration, not independent surveys at those levels.

How licensed providers are counted

Provider counts come from DELPROS (Delaware Division of Professional Regulation) license records via Salesforce. Each active license with a Delaware practice address is included.

Providers are mapped to SOC occupation codes using the NUCC taxonomy crosswalk. Multi-license holders are counted once in All Healthcare (by distinct person) and included in each occupation they hold when viewing a specific license type — for example, someone with both NP and RN licenses appears in both NP and RN counts. CSR (controlled substance) licenses are not counted separately; only the underlying clinical license is included.

ZIP-level counts are based on the practice address ZIP code from the license record.

How tract-level provider counts are estimated

Census tract provider counts are estimates, not exact counts. No street-level address data is available in the DELPROS licensing system — only ZIP codes.

To estimate tract-level counts, each ZIP's provider total is distributed across the census tracts that overlap it, weighted by the number of census blocks shared between that ZIP and each tract (derived from the Census LODES crosswalk).

For example, if ZIP 19713 has 100 providers and overlaps 11 tracts, each tract receives a share proportional to how much geographic area it shares with that ZIP. This is the same methodology used by HUD for ZIP-to-tract allocation.

Employment trend & forecast

Historical (solid line): Annual employment counts from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, reported at the state level for Delaware.

Forecast (dashed line): Projected employment from the BLS Employment Projections program, which models 10-year occupational growth based on industry output, productivity, and labor force trends. These are projections, not predictions — actual employment will vary.

Both historical and forecast data are state-level only and do not change when a county or ZIP is selected. Sub-state employment breakdowns (county, ZIP, tract) are allocated estimates shown in the headline card and comparison table, but BLS does not publish sub-state time series.

Wage trend & forecast

Historical (solid line): P25, median, and P75 annual wages from the BLS OES state files for Delaware, 2020 onward.

Forecast (dashed line): A simple linear projection of the historical median trend, extended to match the employment forecast end year. This is a straight-line extrapolation — it does not account for inflation, labor market shifts, or policy changes. It will be replaced with BLS Employment Projections wage data when available.

The wage trend chart is state-level only and does not change when a county or ZIP is selected. County-level wages in the headline card and comparison table are adjusted using Census CBP payroll ratios. No wage data is shown at the ZIP or tract level.

Job postings data

Job postings are scraped from the career pages of 7 Delaware hospitals using their public job listing APIs (Workday, iCIMS, Oracle HCM, Symplr, InFor, USAJobs). Postings are matched to SOC occupation codes using keyword-based classification.

Data collection began in April 2026. Earlier months show retroactive postings (listings that were already active when scraping started), not real historical posting volume. The "Collection started" line on the chart marks this boundary.

This data covers hospital postings only — non-hospital healthcare employers (clinics, private practices, long-term care facilities) are not yet included.

Postings data is statewide and does not change when a county or ZIP is selected.

Job postings — 60-day view

Shows the number of new unique job postings per day over the last 60 days, scraped from 7 Delaware hospital career pages.

Each posting is counted once on the day it was first seen. Duplicate listings (same job reposted) are deduplicated by title, employer, and URL.

This covers hospital postings only — non-hospital healthcare employers are not yet included. Data is statewide and does not change when a county or ZIP is selected.

Active job listings — 60-day view

Shows how many job listings were currently active (posted and not yet removed) on each day over the last 60 days. This is a cumulative count — it grows as new postings appear and shrinks as old ones are taken down.

A rising trend suggests growing demand or slower hiring; a flat line suggests stable turnover. Unlike the "new postings" chart, this reflects the total open positions at any given time.

Covers 7 Delaware hospitals only. Data is statewide and does not change when a county or ZIP is selected.

Provider-to-population ratio

Providers per 1,000 residents divides the count of licensed providers (from DELPROS) by the total population (from Census ACS 5-Year), then multiplies by 1,000.

Provider:patient ratio shows how many residents there are per licensed provider (total population ÷ provider count).

The population denominator is the total population of the selected geography, regardless of the occupation selected. It does not represent only patients of that specialty.

Population data: Census ACS 5-Year estimates, table B01003 (total population).

Workforce demographics

Demographics come from two sources that update independently with geography filters:

DELPROS (licensed providers) — gender and age computed from actual license records (Birth_Year__c, Gender__c). This data filters by county when a county is selected. Available for the 37 licensed occupations.

Census ACS 5-Year PUMS — gender, age, and race from survey microdata. This is always statewide and does not change when a county is selected. Available for 17 occupations with enough survey respondents (n ≥ 30).

Race & ethnicity: Only available from Census ACS (DELPROS does not collect race data). "Minority" = all categories except white alone (non-Hispanic). Always statewide.

"Near retirement" = ages 55 and older, computed from DELPROS when available (actual provider ages), otherwise Census ACS.

How wages are estimated

State-level wages (P25, median, P75) come directly from BLS OES annual state files — these are survey-based figures, not estimates.

County-level wages are estimated by adjusting state wages using Census County Business Patterns (CBP) payroll-per-worker ratios. If a county's average payroll per worker is higher than the state average, wages are adjusted upward proportionally, and vice versa.

ZIP and census tract views do not show wage data, as there is no reliable basis for sub-county wage estimation.