When and Why Nurses Are Leaving the Workforce

I find it curious that "Age" and "Retirement" were listed as separate factors. I would imagine that for most people planning to retire in the near future, "age" is also a factor.

I figured "age" was referring to getting older, not being able to work as hard, and not having their functional threshold being set as high as it once used to, but still being able to perform a job with lower bodily impact, whereas "retirement" was referring to being 100% finished with the work force.

Yeah cuz after you get so old you can't get another job. I'm counting down my years now.

I've read online that big companies like HCA are encouraging their older nurse workers to take call-center-style jobs to remain in the workforce. I think it remains to be seen how effective that is.

I would leave because I'm sick of mandatory education that is only held in the day hours. I am a strictly night person and asking me to stay over or come in to a class in the middle of my sleep... driving me nuts. My daughter has an attorney on speed dial to call if I fall asleep on the way home from this nonsense and either kill myself or kill someone else because of "driving drowsy".

I don't believe that pay is such a small factor because nurses are overall more satisfied with their compensation. I think it's a non-factor because pay has been pretty much stagnant for years and unless you leave your community totally the pay is not appreciably different enough from facility to facility to make that the only reason to change jobs.

I left nursing because I'm no longer marketable. I'm 61, have an ASN, and no one will hire me in my specialty which I did for 11 years, because I don't have a BSN. Nursing appears to be its own worst enemy. Almost all ads for nursing positions require or prefer a BSN, a move that perpetuates, among other things, the nursing shortage. It's not the only thing that drives that shortage which most of the time is artificially created.

Instead of allowing you to get the associate degree in 2 years, community colleges now require you to do the pre reqs with a 4.0 average before even getting accepted, an absurd notion. This may sound insulting but if I'm a 4.0 student it's probably not going to be nursing.

I'm now doing something where a nursing license is required and no one cares about my degree status. I set my own hours and I choose who I'm going to work with. Autonomy...that thing most nurses don't experience.

Hospitals create shortages

Nursing perpetuates it by fighting about degrees

i understand the need for single entry level. I get it. But, punishing non BSN nurses for not having the BSN is not the way to go about it. Also, not every ADN nurse has a desire to get it. It doesn't mean you leave them behind. If nursing wants an all BSN workforce then they need to eliminate the ADN programs. Of course there would be no RN to BSN programs making nursing education incredibly expensive and driving the shortage even further.

Nursing makes nursing miserable.

Not only the daytime hours but they also demanded we attend classes on our day off, even if they are paying you ,you do not get a day to rest fully.They can keep their money and let me rest as I have more than earned it.

You seem to have forgotten about all the "green card" holding Nurses from all over the world that have flooded our hospitals, LTAC's and all other facilities. Did they take a vote? Many of us older nurses can't even get hired because of our age. I know many of them. I'm a 57 year old PACU nurse. Now I can only work PACU through agencies. I can still do the work but yes I too only hold an ADN degree. Every hospital wants BSN now.