Graduate nurses locked out of jobs despite Qld facing 21,000 staff shortage
Graduate nurses and midwives struggle to find jobs in Queensland hospitals despite a projected shortage of 21,000 healthcare workers.
Graduate nurses and midwives cannot find jobs in Queensland state hospitals, despite a projected 21,000 workforce shortage.
The Queensland Health Department says it is advertising for more than 600 nurse and midwife positions, however graduating midwives and nurses are unable to secure full-time positions.
It comes as Labor accused the LNP government of reducing nursing and midwifery graduate positions in the 2026 intake.
According to the latest workforce gap report, Queensland needs to hire 21,331 extra full-time nurses in the next seven years to meet demand.
About 4200 nurses and midwives were expected to graduate in 2025.
But Queensland Health has employed less than half of this number in full-time positions.
One midwifery graduate, who asked not to be named, told The Courier-Mail she had reached a dead end after failing to secure a job at three different hospitals, despite being told when starting her degree the majority of students would receive jobs.
“I can’t understand it because midwives are ‘killing themselves’ at Caboolture where I interned,” she said.
“Every shift I’ve been on midwives are doing double shifts, overtime, coming in on their days off.”
After getting knocked back from Caboolture, Sunshine Coast and Bundaberg hospitals, the nurse applied to Gold Coast, Darling Downs and Metro South health services.
“I was desperate...they all said sorry our allocations are full,” she said.
In Parliament on Wednesday, Opposition Leader Steven Miles asked Health Minister Tim Nicholls if the government was slashing the number of graduate positions.
Mr Nicholls said the graduate numbers for 2026 would be determined by the number of graduates there were.
He also indicated that there was not enough money in the budget to increase the workforce.
But a Queensland Health spokesman said the department was significantly increasing the size of its nursing and midwifery workforce.
“Our efforts are making a difference – 2100 full-time-equivalent nurses and midwives have joined us since November 2024.”
The government is yet to finalise a health workforce plan despite needing to hire an extra 46,000 frontline staff by 2032.
Originally published as Graduate nurses locked out of jobs despite Qld facing 21,000 staff shortage
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