San Antonio: health care/biosciences industry eclipses $30B

SAN ANTIONO – The economic impact of health care and the biosciences was $30.6 billion in 2013, up from $23.5 billion in 2012, according to a study by Trinity University professors Richard Butler and Mary Stefl.

More than 32 percent of the economic impact from health care and the biosciences is driven by the city’s highly competitive hospital sector. Pharmaceutical, research and education activity accounts for another 21 percent of the estimated impact.

Employers in the health care/bioscience industry paid out nearly $8 billion in wages in 2013, according to the study. More than one in six San Antonio workers are employed by the industry.

In the last ten years, San Antonio’s health care and biosciences industry has added more than 41,500 net new jobs — an increase of 40 percent.

Over the last decade, the economic impact from San Antonio’s hospital sector has increased by 130 percent. That growth rate can be tied to a number of factors, including continued infrastructure expansion.

Methodist Healthcare, for example, has continued to invest in its infrastructure. The health care system and has begun work on a $250 million project that will involve the expansion of two of its South Texas Medical Center hospitals.