Job market heats up amid retirement wave, regional shortages
After years of relative equilibrium, the job market for nurses is heating up in many markets, driving up wages and sign-on bonuses for the nation’s fifth-largest occupation.
The last nursing shortage more than a decade ago ended when a surge of nursing graduates filled many positions, and the financial crisis of 2008 led older nurses to delay retirement. But as the economy improves, nurses who held on to jobs through the uneven recovery are now retiring or cutting back hours, say recruiters. The departures come as demand for nurses has increased, thanks to expanded insurance coverage from job growth and the Affordable Care Act.
“We’re having a retirement wave,” said Jane Englebright, senior vice president and chief nursing officer for HCA Holdings Inc., the largest U.S. hospital company, with hospitals largely scattered across the South. HCA has reported wage increases for nurses in some markets, but she declined to say where.
National numbers show a stable nurse workforce in recent years, with the average U.S. nurse’s wage flat and enough new graduates to offset retirees. Yet national numbers lag the emerging regional pockets of shortages, say employers and workforce analysts. Peter Buerhaus, a health-care economist and nursing professor at Montana State University, said he is hearing of strains in areas, and he and colleagues forecast greater shortages in New England and along the West Coast in coming years. In Pennsylvania, Florida and Nebraska, the proliferation of new nursing jobs outside of hospitals has helped strain supply, say several hospital operators. In Iowa, surging demand for hospital care has outstripped the labor market. In Texas, hospitals cannot hire fast enough to match population growth.