Nursing mass exodus will leave 40,000 vacancies by 2025 as one in five plan to quit

One in five nurses will quit their job in the coming year amid a major retention crisis in the sector that will lead to an estimated 40,000 nursing vacancies in three years without intervention, a report has found.

One in five nurses will quit their jobs by 2025 as the nation approaches a healthcare crisis.

One in five nurses will quit their job in the coming year amid a major retention crisis in the sector that will lead to an estimated 40,000 nursing vacancies in three years without intervention.

Dissatisfaction with wages, burnout from the intense and demanding nature of the work and rampant under-staffing in the sector is driving Australian nurses to seek new opportunities or even leave the profession altogether.

A report by consulting firm McKinsey & Company found that 41 per cent of nurses surveyed indicated they would move countries or leave nursing entirely in the next year, while 27 per cent said they would seek a direct-care nursing role at an alternative employer and 17 per cent said they would change roles at their current employer.

The retention crisis will leave an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 nursing positions unfilled by 2025, the report, titled “Should I stay, or should I go? Australia’s nurse retention dilemma”, found.

McKinsey & Company associate partner and co-author of the report Madeline Maud said while the leading reason for nurses wanting to leave their positions was remuneration, this did not take into account the importance of workplace culture in fighting the exodus.

“Of those who wanted to leave, 19 per cent were seeking higher pay; 13 per cent said they would be interested in leaving from the intensity of their work and 12 per cent were interested in leaving because of insufficient staffing levels,” she said. “But that is not the full picture. We should take that together with the response when we asked nurses, why do you stay in your role?

“Overwhelmingly, what we heard back was the most important factor was the work environment, teammates, safe space and feeling valued by managers.

“And when you rank them top to bottom in terms of levels of importance, remuneration comes in the bottom third. What that tells us is employers looking to retain frontline nurses and excite and attract them can do a lot of things beyond remuneration.”

The cost of a nurse leaving the industry is estimated to be about $150,000 so investing in retention measures such as safer and supportive workplaces was vital. Picture: Alain Jocard/AFP

Ms Maud said while there were no simple answers, the report did point to solutions that could guide action to boost retention by focusing on the work environment.

The cost of a nurse leaving the industry is estimated to be about $150,000 so investing in retention measures such as safer and supportive workplaces was vital. “There is no silver bullet but we’ve mapped out three things that government and industry healthcare leaders can do,” she said.

“They’re about building the workforce and growing the number of people in the workforce, exciting or engaging the workforce and better utilising them, making the most out of the workforce that we have, those are the three themes of intervention.”

Ms Maud said the causes of the nursing shortage had begun long before the pandemic, with fewer graduates entering the profession and the stresses of Covid-19 having only intensified the problem.

“There were a lot of challenges on the frontline before the pandemic but the pandemic really exacerbated the existing challenges in that there was additional demand, challenges in supply, more absences, challenges getting nurses across borders and across the country,” she said.

“What we actually face is demand for healthcare outpacing supply and the existing workforce is insufficient to make up for it.”