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After a couple of years of unrelenting stress, furloughs, and critical understaffing that drove thousands of nurses to exit the field, the health care workforce is now making a comeback.
New data shows that for the first time since COVID-19 struck, nurse numbers are on the rise again, offering hope to clinicians and patients alike that the profession is recovering from pandemic-fueled burnout and dissatisfaction.
What Happened
During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of registered nurses in the U.S. dropped by 100,000—the largest single-year decline since 1980. This drop came on the heels of steady growth in the nursing workforce. Between 1982 and 2019, the number of nurses working in the country had tripled to 3.2 million.
A.C. Dahnke
Author
A.C. Dahnke is a freelance writer and editor residing in California. She has covered community journalism and health care news for nearly a decade, winning a California Newspaper Publishers Award for her work.
