Healthcare is an established hotspot for "boomerang" employees: those who leave an organization and return to it at a later time. But recent research shows that the industry itself has the highest return rate among women who took a career break.
Data from LinkedIn's Economic Graph team, released Feb. 29, found that hospitals and healthcare have the highest return rate of women who have taken time away from the workforce, with 51.6% who leave eventually coming back. Across all sectors, only about a third of women return to the same industry they originally left.
Hospitals and healthcare had a notably higher return rate than other industries — financial services saw a 41.7% return rate, while women returned to professional services, which includes accounting and consulting firms, 38.1% of the time.
Overall, women in the U.S. are 43% more likely to list a career break on their LinkedIn profile than their male counterparts. Only 4.3% of women who returned to the same industry secured positions at a higher level of seniority, compared to 13.9% who changed industries.
LinkedIn also observed different reasons between men and women for career breaks. Women are most likely to leave their jobs to serve as full-time parents, look after their health and well-being or assume caregiving responsibilities. Men, on the other hand, primarily leave their jobs upon retirement, a career transition or a professional development opportunity.