Today's Registered Nursing Workforce

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, FAAN

This past week, I had the opportunity to do a webinar on Nurse.com related to the US Healthcare Workforce providing advice on what nurses should think about as they plan their future careers. In preparing for this program and reviewing the most recent data available, I learned a great deal about our nursing workforce.

Consider the following 10 facts:

There are 2.8 million Registered Nurses in the workforce today in the United States – – this is a 24% increase since the year 2000.
80% of nurses who have active licenses work in nursing – this is considered a very high labor participation rate when compared with other professions.
The nursing workforce is aging – 38% of the current RN workforce are over the age of 55 and 53% are over the age of 50.
We graduate roughly 161,000 new graduates who are eligible to sit for the RN exam – probably not enough to meet future demand.
The distribution of the RN workforce in the United States is uneven when compared to the needs of the population with some states (ex. Pennsylvania, Maine, Iowa) having a high percentage of RNs and some states (New Mexico, Texas) having a much lower percent of RNs per 100,000 population.
75% of nurse faculty today are over the age of 50.
57% of nurses today work in hospitals – a 5% decline since 2008.
The fastest employment growth in nursing is in home health, long-term care and hospice.
51% of the nursing workforce has a BSN.
Most new nursing positions being created today are advertised with a preference for a BSN or higher degree.

When looking at future career planning, it is also important to consider key skills and competencies that are becoming more important in healthcare today. These include the following:

Care coordination or managing patients across the continuum of care
Chronic disease management in populations of patients
Interprofessional team skills such as communication, collaboration and managing conflict
Community health experience
Caring for an aging population
Cultural competence
Clinical Informatics
Using “Big Data” to support clinical decision making
Telehealth
Leading and delegating patient care

Relevance for Career Planning

A key question is how this information should be used in planning one’s nursing career. Based on my review of the literature, here are my recommendations:

Expand your job searches beyond the traditional hospital setting to include long-term care and community-based settings if you are looking for employment.
Advance your education to a BSN or beyond – it is a good investment in your professional future.
Look for stretch opportunities in your current setting to development the new skills and competencies discussed above.
Recognize that we could be facing a very serious shortage of nurses by the end of the decade – the workforce is aging rapidly.
Consider becoming a nursing faculty member as this is a very critical future need.

References

American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (April 14th, 2014). Nursing Shortage Factsheet. Available at http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media-relations/fact-sheets/nursing-shortage.

Budden, J.S., Zhong, E.H., Moulton, P. & Cimotti, J.P. (2013). Supplement: The National Council of State Boards of Nursing and the Forum of State Nursing Workforce Centers 2013 National Workforce Survey of Registered Nurses. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 4(2), S1-72.

Bureau of Health Professions National Center for Workforce Analysis. (2014). Supply and Demand Data Chartbooks. Available at http://bhpr.hrsa.gov/healthworkforce/supplydemand/index.html

Institute of Medicine (2010). Future of Nursing: Leading change advancing health. Washington DC: Institute of Medicine.

Ramachandran, V. (May 7th, 2014). The New Nursing Shortage. USA Today. Available at http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/05/07/ozy-nursing-shortage/8807937 /

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (January 2014). Recent RN Graduates Report Fewer Job Opportunities than Earlier Graduates. Available at http://www.rwjf.org/en/about-rwjf/newsroom/newsroom-content/2014/01/recent-rn-graduates-report-fewer-job-opportunities-than-earlier-.html