Nonprofit hospitals and ambulatory health care services are seeing a slight improvement with longstanding staffing shortages, according to new research, though the industry is still dealing with high rates of workers leaving the field.
A report released Tuesday from Fitch Ratings found that the unemployment rate in hospitals went from 1.8 percent in October to 1.3 percent in November.
Payrolls went up 0.21 percent at hospitals and 0.28 percent at ambulatory health care services in that same period. Between September and October, the industry saw 86,000 fewer job openings.
The incremental changes may indicate the health care industry is on the mend slightly from staffing shortage issues seen since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the job openings rate recorded in October (8.7 percent) is still notably higher than the average seen in the previous decade (4.2 percent from 2010-19), the report notes, and the unemployment rate “still indicates a challenging environment.”
The health care and social assistance sector is also still seeing a high volume of quits as workers exit the field. In October, the quit rate was at 2.5 percent, while the 2010-19 average was 1.6 percent.
Fitch Ratings Director Richard Park said the current quit rate “indicates that health care and social assistance workers have a high willingness and ability to leave their current jobs” amid concerns about pay and job conditions.
Nurses and health care workers have been turning away from the front lines and the health care field more broadly as they weather the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic — and, more recently, the “tripledemic” of COVID-19, RSV and the flu.
Those exiting have cited burnout from the pandemic, a rise in workplace violence and ongoing issues with staffing, according to a National Nurses United poll from earlier this year.
Medical organizations last month warned President Biden that overstrained emergency departments are causing an “exodus” of professionals from the health care space.
A recent American Association of Critical-Care Nurses survey found nearly a quarter of nurses plan to retire or leave the profession in the next few years.