America’s nursing shortage could deepen by 2029, national survey reveals

A sweeping new study by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) is sounding the alarm about a critical shortage in the U.S. nursing workforce, with researchers warning that nearly two in five nurses plan to leave the profession or retire within the next five years.

Brendan Martin, director of research for the NCSBN, said the National Nursing Workforce Survey—now the largest and most comprehensive of its kind—gathered responses from more than 800,000 nurses across the country.

“We surveyed over 800,000 nurses across the entire United States,” Martin said.

COVID-19 Accelerated Workforce Strain

The survey reveals that while the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic has passed, the strain it placed on the healthcare system continues to impact the nursing field in 2024.

“We saw evidence of a workforce recovery coming out of the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Martin said. “It was largely driven by a rebound among older, more experienced nurses reentering the workforce since 2022.”

However, the findings also underscore the long-standing issues exacerbated by the pandemic.

“Many of the structural issues that nurses identify as kind of drivers of intent to leave—short staffing, high workloads, high levels or elevated levels of acute burnout and stress—those existed prior to the pandemic, but certainly they were exacerbated by the healthcare crisis,” he said.

Martin noted a significant drop in older, experienced nurses during the height of the pandemic, followed by a partial rebound.

“One of the things that's kind of heartening...is we saw many of those, kind of older, more experienced nurses reenter the workforce,” he said. “What gives us a little bit of pause...is we also saw many of those individuals indicate and intend to retire in the short to intermediate term. So before 2029.”

Future Outlook Raises Alarms

According to Martin, without intervention, the profession faces major attrition in the coming years.

“At a clip of about 40%—that’s two in every five nurses...indicated that they plan to either leave the profession or retire in the next five years,” he said. “A little bit more than the majority are due to planned retirement...but there’s also those individuals who aren’t yet at retirement age who also indicate at elevated levels that they intend to leave as well.”

Martin stressed the urgent need for a unified effort from healthcare leaders, employers, educators and policymakers to implement proactive strategies.

“Simply to maintain current healthcare standards, let alone to keep up with where we know the projections are for healthcare demand, really requires an all hands on deck approach,” he said. “We need everybody coming to the table to make sure that we are putting in place comprehensive and proactive and intentional policy.”

Impact on Patients and Families

Martin said the ongoing nursing shortage isn’t just a workforce issue—it will affect every American who relies on healthcare services.

“The one thing I always say to [my wife] is the one absolute universal is that at one point or another we’ll all be consumers of healthcare,” he said. “So it touches all of our lives.”

The full survey and findings are available on NCSBN's website.