There’s a nursing shortage on the horizon. Here’s why it’s happening, what you can expect, and how you, as an employer, can do your best to combat it.

There is a nursing school staffing shortage due to a lack of pay.
Nursing programs at Mississippi’s public universities turn away hundreds of nursing school applications each year due to a lack of faculty at the universities. These programs in Mississippi have struggled to keep faculty due to the state’s lower-than-average salary for public university employees. Across the nation, nursing schools turned away nearly 92,000 qualified applications, compared to the 276,000 new nursing students enrolled in programs in 2021.

A significant number of nurses are nearing retirement age and their roles have yet to be backfilled.
The average age of nurses is 50, and nearly 1 million nurses will be retired by the year 2030. Because of the staffing shortage, and as a result of burnout in healthcare workers everywhere, no one has been found to backfill the roles from which these nurses are retiring.

Staffing issues have been amplified as a result of COVID, causing burnout in many nurses, resulting in them quitting.
Due to long working hours and staffing issues, nurses are overworked and experiencing burnout as a result. Their jobs are no longer as fulfilling as they once were when they first started.

The first step to solving any problem is identifying the problem. In this case, there’s a deep-rooted issue that’s wreaking havoc on the healthcare industry – instead of working from the ground up and starting from the foundation, holes are being patched. Specifically, healthcare workers aren’t receiving the support they need to do their jobs, and they’re burning out. This vicious cycle will continue as long as healthcare workers continue to go unsupported.

Overall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is projecting over 200,000 openings for registered nurses (RNs) each year leading up to 2031.

One way that you, as an employer, can face the nursing shortage head-on is to add digital marketing to your recruitment strategy. Digital marketing includes email campaigns, geofencing, and digital marketing. If you don’t have an internal team that can help you source candidates or implement a new marketing strategy, outsourcing your marketing is another great option.

Click here to learn more about PracticeMatch’s Client Sourcing team and all they have to offer.

If you have anything you’d like to discuss with us, please reach out at infromation@practicematch.com.