Companies began hiring for open chief medical officer positions at a record rate during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report from Yahoo Finance.
In 2019, only 767 chief medical officer jobs were posted to recruitment site ZipRecruiter. In 2021, that number skyrocketed to 5,000. This year, more than 2,900 jobs have been posted to date.
The demand was seen across several industries, as companies sought in-house experts to provide consultations on pandemic safety.
The surge in hiring also created an informal U.S. roundtable of chief medical officers, a group of physicians who are now part of C-suites at some of America's top corporations.
These C-suite medical experts are tasked with fighting disinformation in the workplace, advising executives on operational decisions and more.
"I don't think employers today are going to move away from chief physician executive or chief medical officer roles if they can add them at this point. Just because of the uncertainty moving out of the pandemic," Marc Watkins, MD, chief medical officer at Kroger, told Yahoo.