# US medical and diagnostic laboratory employment was 310,200 in August 2026 — below its March 2022 peak but still about 8% above its pre-pandemic level

Page: https://flyvolo.ai/en/changes/ev-20260801-lab-technician-1
Date: 2026-08-01 · Stage: Labour impact
Can this record move a task judgement? yes
Occupation: https://flyvolo.ai/en/careers/lab-technician

## Scope

NAICS 6215, medical and diagnostic laboratories, all employees, seasonally adjusted. The decline from the March 2022 peak is real and must not be read as automation: the peak is a COVID testing surge (288,100 in December 2019, rising to 322,300 by March 2022) and what has happened since is that surge unwinding, with employment settling above where it started rather than below. Anyone quoting the fall from the peak without the pre-pandemic baseline gets the direction of this series wrong. It also covers standalone laboratories only — technicians working inside a hospital laboratory, which is where most of them are, are counted in hospitals instead.

## Source

- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, CES series CES6562150001 (medical and diagnostic laboratories) — https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES6562150001 (primary source)

## What this means

The honest reading of this series requires the pre-pandemic baseline, and with it the picture inverts: laboratory employment is about 8% above where it stood in December 2019, and the fall from the 2022 peak is a COVID testing surge unwinding. Whatever automation has done to this occupation, the series shows standalone-laboratory employment settling above its pre-pandemic level, not collapsing.

## What it does not show yet

It cannot see hospital laboratory staff, which is where most technicians work, and it does not measure tests performed, staff per test or skill mix. The site's claim about this occupation is that automation changed what the job contains rather than whether it exists, and a headcount series is exactly the wrong instrument for detecting that.

## How to verify it yourself

Find out how many tests your laboratory ran last year per member of staff, and compare with five years ago. That ratio is the automation, and it is in your own quality records.


More: https://flyvolo.ai/llms.txt