Millennials flock to nursing, staving off shortage

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

USA Today

Jan. 6, 2018

Millennials flock to nursing, staving off shortage

INDIANAPOLIS - Millennials are saving the nursing profession.

Facing a potential shortage due to Baby Boomers retiring, nursing has welcomed an unexpected surge of Millennials entering the field.

Those Millennials are nearly twice as likely to be nurses as their grandparents' generation, the Baby Boomers, a recent Health Affairs study found. This trend has averted a potential workforce crisis and has implications for the future of nursing, said David Auerbach, one of the authors of the study.

"Definitely the composition of the workforce is shifting. In just a few years there will be more Millennials than Baby Boomers in the nursing workforce," he said.

Health Affairs Oct. 2917

Millennials Almost Twice As Likely To Be Registered Nurses As Baby Boomers Were

David I. Auerbach, Peter I. Buerhaus, Douglas O. Staiger

Baby-boomer registered nurses (RNs), the largest segment of the RN workforce from 1981 to 2012, are now retiring. This would have led to nurse shortages but for the surprising embrace of the profession by millennials-who are entering the nurse workforce at nearly double the rate of the boomers. Still, the boomers' retirement will reduce growth in the size of the RN workforce to 1.3 percent per year for the period 2015–30.
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Specializes in Medical-Surgical/Float Pool/Stepdown.

So someone finally admitted that there was no nursing shortage! (I mean no new nursing shortage anyways...)

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Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.

Great, now Millennials killed the nursing shortage!

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Wonder how long they will put up with the working conditions at the bedside?

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YAY!!!

Go millennials!!! Hopefully you guys will be able to take the ball & run with it. Take care of your patients but take damn good care of yourselves to

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The majority of the new grads coming into our hospital are coming in already planning how to get out of bedside nursing. A lot are continuing on to start NP programs immediately. Have heard more than once "this isn't going to be my forever job" while they are training. Tough time to be starting out due to the current healthcare environment, understaffing and cost cutting, flat wage scales so I do understand their thinking. Reality is though, there are many more jobs "on the floors" and with direct patient care than without. There are some but then most nurses I have seen have to give up the flexibility found in a 24/7 environment and work five days a week and take some level of pay cut.

Also, starting wage for a associate degree nurse is good but, at least in our area, the benefits are very poor, expensive insurance with very high copays, etc. Also, entire half of our state controlled by two hospital systems resulting in kind of a monopoly situation where there is no competition. Our scale tops out at 10 years with no further increases except yearly cost of living so returns start to diminish even though starting wage is good.

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Well, I hope that healthcare provides them that "safe space" that they have been seeking out.

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
Well, I hope that healthcare provides them that "safe space" that they have been seeking out.

You've got sassy pants on today, don't you!

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I am going to remember this and be even more excited when you like my stuff from now on.

No pressure.

(Please like me)

For real

(See I can do this too! It's fun, yay!)

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Wonder how long they will put up with the working conditions at the bedside?

You see, that's where things will collapse. From what I've seen, many are using the bedside as a stepping stone, not a career. Many are also quitting before their contracts are even completed. Multiple others have stated that they're just working while they finish their NP. Or, my favorite, putting in those 1-2 years before going into management...okay, I'm going to stop there because that's a whole new thread...

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Specializes in Practice educator.

I don't see the correlation between millenials being twice as likely to be nurses than their baby boomer grandparents and it affecting staff shortages. If thats the only metric they're using, which is the only one I can see, then thats completely ignoring that the population has more than doubled as well as people living longer with multiple co-morbidities has skyrocketed and thus the overall workforce need has more than doubled. If theirs a higher demand, theirs a higher chance of going in to that profession.

It seems like lazy journalism to me.

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Specializes in PMHNP-BC.

Lord help me! I just SERIOUSLY asked my daughter..."sweetheart, never try to take care of me at home (21 year old) I think if I need care you should put me in a nursing home"...ummm because her generation is on social media 8 hours per day and most of her friends haven't even had a job yet, now you tell me my safe place to land has been corrupted by her peers! LOL...

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