Current Issues in Healthcare: Workforce Shortages

By: Christina Nguyen

As of recent years, the workforce shortage in healthcare have become increasingly more noticeable as seen with the COVID-19 pandemic and more recently, the New York nurses’ strike earlier this year. This shortage includes a multitude of professions including physicians, nurses, and even pharmacists. In an article I’ve read, it is said that the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) projects shortages of up to 5,000 pharmacists over the next 15 years, with the pharmacy technician role being one of the hardest role to fill. As of 2021, this role has a 20% turnover rate with just a 7% growth rate.

We must note that our current healthcare shortage has been ongoing for over a decade, with the current nursing shortage specifically beginning around 2012. Historically, in the US, these shortages have often emerged in the post-war period due to rising demand for healthcare services, population growth, changing disease burdens, and an insufficient supply of trained nurses to meet patient care needs. But why is there a shortage now?

There is not one definitive thing we can blame for this shortage. Multiple factors come into play. Aging populations are one of the reasons on both the patient end and the nursing end. As the population ages, more people require care, and older adults often need more frequent and complex healthcare services. With over half of the American population that are over 65 needing two or more chronic health conditions, according to the CDC, more healthcare workers from all different fields are needed to provide ample care for them. At the same time, many nurses are also reaching retirement age, which further reduces the available workforce. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported that in 2022, the median age of RNs was 46 years old, with more than one-quarter of registered nurses reporting that they plan to leave nursing or retire over the next five years.

Aside from losing nurses and other healthcare workers to retirement, we are also losing these essential workers to burnout. Understaffed nursing units place greater demands on nurses and significantly increase workplace stress, and with time, the mental and physical strain of these conditions can quickly contribute to burnout. As seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, nursing shortages not only create heavier workloads but also hasten emotional exhaustion, stress, and intentions to leave the profession, further worsening workforce instability. Research from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing found that the pandemic amplified long-standing burnout and stress among U.S. nurses. More recent workforce data continue to show that short staffing and heavy workloads remain major drivers of nurses’ plans to leave the profession. 

Although not the only reasons, I think these are two big factors in the national healthcare shortage we are facing as a country. With the recent victory in the historic New York nurse strike that began on January 12, 2026, and ended after 41 days on February 21, 2026, it is clear that nurses are continuing to push for safer staffing, better working conditions, and stronger protections for both workers and patients. The strike showed that healthcare shortages are not just about a lack of workers, but also about the conditions that make it difficult to recruit and retain nurses over time.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9086817/
https://www.mckesson.com/health-systems/prescribed-perspectives/strategies-for-success-in-offsetting-persistent-labor-and-resource-constraints/ 
https://www.usa.edu/blog/nursing-shortage/ 
https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/nhhc/workforce-issues/where-did-all-the-nurses-go/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10074070/ 
https://www.aacnnursing.org/news-data/fact-sheets/nursing-workforce-fact-sheet 
https://www.nysna.org/press/after-41-days-historic-nurse-strike-ends 

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