Do We Really Have a Nursing Shortage? New Research Is Challenging the Answer
For years, hospitals, policymakers, and nursing organizations have warned about a nationwide nursing shortage. But a growing body of reporting and research is raising a different question: Does the United States have a shortage of nurses, or a shortage of nurses staying in bedside roles?
A July 30 TIME investigation by senior correspondent Alana Semuels examined that debate, focusing on whether the country’s nursing workforce challenges may stem more from retention than from a lack of licensed nurses.
According to the NCSBN 2024 National Nursing Workforce Survey about 6.6 million registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and licensed vocational nurses hold active licenses in the United States. By comparison, the U.S. supported about 3.4 million RN jobs and roughly 651,400 LPN/LVN jobs in 2024.
Those figures have fueled a growing debate over whether the country’s biggest workforce challenge is producing more nurses or retaining the experienced nurses it already has.
The comparison isn’t exact because licensure data and employment data measure different things. Some nurses hold multiple licenses, work in non-bedside roles, are retired, or are not actively seeking nursing employment. Even so, the numbers have prompted researchers to examine whether retention may have become as significant a challenge as recruitment.
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One reason the debate has shifted is that new nurses continue entering the profession. According to NCSBN’s 2025 NCLEX Examination Statistics, 280,308 candidates passed the exam in 2025, up 34% from 2016. But researchers say a growing pipeline alone will not fix bedside shortages if burnout, insufficient staffing, and poor working conditions continue driving experienced nurses out of clinical roles.
Karen Lasater, PhD, RN, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing who studies nurse retention, has argued that the profession may be focusing too heavily on recruitment while overlooking why nurses leave.
“We’re really putting a lot of money into building a pipeline for nursing, but if nurses are leaving after a year or two of getting into employment, the problem isn’t so much a pipeline problem as a leaking gas tank,” Lasater said.
In a study of more than 50,000 nurses working in New York and Illinois hospitals, researchers found that more than two-thirds reported insufficient staffing, while nearly one-third reported job dissatisfaction and intended to leave their employer.
“I fear that we’re headed to a worse place, because it’s apparent that we didn’t learn much from the COVID-19 pandemic,” Lasater said.
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Many bedside nurses say their work has changed in ways that extend beyond patient assignments alone. TIME reported a nurse describing the elimination of support staff positions, charge nurses carrying patient assignments, and an increasing reliance on technology in place of in-person support services. The biggest changes, the nurse said, have come from administrative decisions rather than patient acuity.
The hospital involved disputed concerns about unsafe staffing, saying staffing remains appropriate and that technology is being used to reduce administrative work while continuing to recruit nurses and offer competitive compensation.
The differing perspectives reflect one of the central questions in the current workforce debate: Are staffing challenges primarily the result of too few nurses entering the profession, or too many experienced nurses choosing to leave bedside care?
The retention debate has also been fueled by workforce data analyzed by National Nurses United.
Using federal employment data and nursing licensure data, the organization reported that about 1.15 million registered nurses held active licenses but were not employed as RNs as of May 2025.
Based on those findings, the organization argues that the country is facing a retention crisis rather than simply a nursing shortage.
“The data is clear that the U.S. nursing profession has a retention crisis, not a nurse shortage,” NNU President Jamie Brown, RN, said in a May 2026 statement.
That interpretation is not universally shared across the healthcare industry. Hospital groups and workforce experts continue to argue that regional workforce shortages, specialty-specific vacancies, and increasing patient complexity remain significant contributors to staffing challenges.
Hospital organizations continue to argue that workforce shortages remain a serious concern, especially given regional gaps, specialty vacancies, and rising patient complexity. Researchers and nursing organizations note that licensure data alone does not necessarily reflect the number of nurses currently available for bedside care because many licensed nurses work in non-bedside roles, are retired, or are no longer employed in nursing.
Research keeps pointing to the same basic conclusion: staffing levels matter, not only for patients but for the nurses caring for them. Higher staffing is consistently associated with better patient outcomes, while leaner staffing is linked to more burnout, lower job satisfaction, and a greater risk that nurses will leave.
The pattern also appears to vary by hospital ownership. Studies have found that for-profit hospitals generally invest less in nursing, which can translate into higher patient-to-nurse ratios, worse work environments, and more burnout and turnover. Other research has found that private equity acquisitions are associated with staffing cuts and lower salary expenditures, especially in emergency departments and intensive care units, with some studies also finding worse patient outcomes after acquisition.
Because these are observational studies, they show strong associations rather than proving one factor directly caused another. Taken together, the findings suggest staffing may influence not only workforce stability but also patient safety and nurse retention.
The retention conversation has renewed interest in minimum staffing laws. California has had required nurse-to-patient ratios since 2004, and Oregon’s nurse-to-patient ratio requirements took effect in June 2024, with remaining provisions phasing in through mid-2026. Supporters say these policies can improve patient outcomes and make bedside nursing more sustainable, while critics worry about whether hospitals can realistically staff to meet them.
The findings have also renewed debate over whether minimum staffing laws could improve nurse retention alongside patient outcomes, or whether broader workforce challenges must also be addressed.
The latest reporting does not settle the debate over whether the United States is facing a nursing shortage or a nurse retention crisis. What it does show is that retention has become an increasingly important part of the conversation.
Hospitals continue to report difficulty filling some positions, while researchers continue examining how staffing, burnout, workplace conditions, and compensation influence whether nurses remain at the bedside.
Whether the solution ultimately comes through graduating more nurses, improving working conditions, or a combination of both remains an active debate. Many researchers, healthcare organizations, and nursing leaders agree that addressing the nation’s workforce challenges will likely require attention to both recruitment and retention.
🤔 Has your employer told you it simply can’t find nurses to hire? Do you believe it? Tell us what recruitment and retention really look like on your unit in the comments.
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Nursing Industry Research
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Published on
August 4, 2026
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