The U.S. healthcare system is short on workers at almost every level. Registered nurses, primary care physicians, lab technicians, physical therapists, and mental health professionals are all running below demand. The shortages vary by specialty and geography, but the direction of travel is the same everywhere: gaps are widening faster than training pipelines can fill them.
This piece pulls together current staffing shortage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the World Health Organization, the American Nurses Association, and HRSA. It covers where the shortfalls are largest, which communities are hit hardest, and what the trajectory looks like through 2030.
For context on how healthcare organizations are responding to these shortages with flexible staffing models, see our overview of healthcare virtual assistant services and our industry-specific staffing solutions.
How large is the healthcare staffing shortage?
The headline numbers vary by source and methodology, but the forecasting bodies agree on the direction.
The BLS projects healthcare and social assistance will add approximately 2.0 million jobs between 2024 and 2034, the largest absolute gain of any industry sector in the U.S. economy. Healthcare support occupations are projected to grow 12.4% over that period. Healthcare practitioner and technical occupations are projected to grow 7.2%. The sector faces roughly 1.9 million job openings per year from a combination of new demand and departing workers.
The WHO puts the global picture in sharper terms. As of February 2025, the organization estimates a global health workforce shortage of 11 million workers by 2030, revised upward from earlier projections of 10 million. About 7.5 million of that global gap is concentrated in low- and middle-income countries, but high-income countries, including the United States, are competing for the same limited international pipeline of trained clinicians.
Nursing shortage statistics
Nursing is where the shortage shows up most directly in day-to-day operations.
HRSA projects a shortage of 78,610 full-time registered nurses in 2025, narrowing to 63,720 by 2030 as new graduates enter the workforce. These projections assume current enrollment trends hold. Rural areas face a much steeper problem: HRSA projects a 24% RN shortage in nonmetro areas by 2027, compared to 7% in metropolitan areas.
The retirement wave makes the math harder. The American Nurses Association projects more than 500,000 experienced RNs will retire by 2026, and more than 1 million nurses are expected to retire by 2030. New graduates are not entering the workforce fast enough to absorb departures at that scale.
Retention is the other half of the picture. A 2022 American Nurses Foundation survey found 52% of nurses were actively considering leaving their current position. In a separate NCSBN workforce study, the registered nurse supply fell by more than 100,000 from 2020 to 2021, the largest single-year drop in 40 years, concentrated mostly among nurses under age 35.
By 2024, the national RN vacancy rate was 9.6% and the annual RN turnover rate was 16.4%, according to the NSI National Health Care Retention and RN Staffing Report. The average time to recruit an experienced registered nurse was 83 days. Each departing nurse costs a hospital an average of $61,110 in turnover expenses, and the average hospital spends roughly $4.75 million per year on RN turnover.
Advanced practice nurses are a partial offset. Employment of nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, and nurse midwives is projected to grow 35% from 2024 to 2034, according to BLS, but this category is growing from a much smaller base than the RN workforce.
Physician shortage statistics
The AAMC publishes the most widely cited physician workforce projections. Its March 2024 report, based on GlobalData modeling, projects a U.S. physician shortage of up to 86,000 by 2036.
Primary care has the largest gap. The AAMC projects a shortage of between 20,200 and 40,400 primary care physicians by 2036. Surgical specialties face a projected gap of between 10,100 and 19,900 surgeons over the same period. A separate HRSA projection puts the number higher, estimating a shortage of more than 187,000 full-time equivalent physicians by 2037.
Demographics are driving this in ways that are hard to reverse quickly. About 20% of the current clinical physician workforce is aged 65 or older. Another 22% are between 55 and 64. A large share of today's active physicians are approaching retirement at the same time the patient population is aging and increasing its use of care. The U.S. population aged 65 and older is projected to grow 34.1% by 2036. The population aged 75 and older will grow 54.7%.
Mental health is a distinct and particularly severe shortage within physician supply. HRSA projects a national shortage of 43,660 adult psychiatrists by 2038. As of 2025, more than half of all U.S. counties have no practicing psychiatrist. More than 122 million Americans live in areas designated as Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas. The national average wait time for behavioral health services is 48 days, and roughly 6 in 10 psychologists do not accept new patients.
Allied health worker shortage statistics
Allied health shortages get less attention than nursing and physician gaps, but they are substantial.
A 2024 study published in the American Journal of Medicine found that 85% of healthcare facilities reported facing a shortage of allied health professionals. The shortfalls span physical therapy, laboratory science, radiology, respiratory care, and behavioral health.
Physical therapy saw some of the most acute attrition in recent years. Definitive Healthcare reported in 2023 that more than 15,000 physical therapists left the profession between 2021 and 2022, about 11% of the entire PT workforce, the largest percentage workforce loss of any tracked healthcare profession during that period. The National Center for Health Workforce Analysis projects a shortage of 6,510 physical therapists by 2036. BLS projects physical therapist employment will grow 11% from 2024 to 2034, but that growth does not fully close the access gap, especially in rural areas.
Clinical laboratory science has a similar problem. Vacancy rates for laboratory technologists reach as high as 25% at some facilities, according to the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science. The BLS projects more than 24,000 vacancies for clinical laboratory technologists per year over the next decade. The ASCLS says the field is currently training less than half the number of professionals needed to meet demand.
HRSA's longer-range projections show shortfalls across the full allied health spectrum: 302,440 licensed practical nurses by 2037, 113,930 addiction counselors, 87,840 mental health counselors, and 79,160 psychologists over the same horizon.
Rural healthcare staffing gaps
Rural communities face shortages that make the national averages look manageable.
Rural areas average approximately 30 physicians per 100,000 residents, compared to 263 per 100,000 in urban areas. Less than 12% of U.S. physicians practice in rural areas, while rural communities are home to roughly 20% of the national population. The U.S. Joint Economic Committee reported in January 2024 that 91% of all rural counties face a shortage of primary care physicians.
The rural physician workforce is also older. With more than half of rural doctors aged 50 or older, the National Rural Health Association projects a 23% decline in rural physicians by 2030 from retirements alone.
Specialty care access is especially thin outside metro areas. Only 4.3% of OB-GYNs and 1.4% of neonatal care physicians practice in rural settings, even though rural areas are home to approximately 10.6% of women aged 15 to 49.
Nursing follows the same geographic pattern. HRSA projects a 24% RN shortage in nonmetro areas by 2027, widening to 19% by 2032, while metro area shortages remain around 6 to 7%. Home health and long-term care facilities, which are concentrated in rural and suburban markets, report vacancy rates of 23 to 27%, well above the national hospital average.
Patient care impact
The connection between staffing levels and patient outcomes is well documented.
The AHA 2025 Health Care Workforce Scan found that 81% of healthcare leaders identify care delays as a significant problem driven by staffing shortages. More than 40% of Americans report experiencing longer-than-reasonable waits for care, and nearly half of those patients gave up and did not seek care at all.
On nurse-to-patient ratios, peer-reviewed research cited by the National Institute for Health Care Management found that each additional patient added to a nurse's caseload increases the risk of patient death by 16%. In workforce surveys, 26% of registered nurses report that they have personally witnessed patient deaths they attributed to unsafe staffing levels.
The mental health access gap tells a similar story. Approximately 62 million U.S. adults had a diagnosable mental illness in 2024. Of those, 48% received no treatment. KFF analysis found that only 26.4% of mental health care needs were met across the country in 2024.
Key statistics summary
| Metric | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. physician shortage projected by 2036 | Up to 86,000 | AAMC, March 2024 |
| U.S. RN shortage projected for 2025 | 78,610 full-time | HRSA, November 2022 |
| U.S. RN shortage projected by 2030 | 63,720 full-time | HRSA, November 2022 |
| RNs expected to retire by 2026 | 500,000+ | American Nurses Association |
| National RN vacancy rate (2024) | 9.6% | NSI Staffing Report 2024 |
| National RN turnover rate (2024) | 16.4% | NSI Staffing Report 2024 |
| Average cost of one RN departure | $61,110 | NSI 2025 |
| Global health workforce shortage by 2030 | 11 million | WHO, February 2025 |
| Rural counties with primary care physician shortage | 91% | U.S. Joint Economic Committee, 2024 |
| Rural physician density vs. urban | 30 vs. 263 per 100,000 | AAMC / NRHA |
| Allied health facilities reporting shortages | 85% | American Journal of Medicine, 2024 |
| Americans in mental health shortage areas | 122 million+ | HRSA / KFF, December 2024 |
| Projected psychiatrist shortage by 2038 | 43,660 | HRSA |
| LPN shortage projected by 2037 | 302,440 | HRSA |
| Lab technologist vacancy rates | Up to 25% | ASCLS |
| Healthcare leaders citing care delays | 81% | AHA 2025 Workforce Scan |
What is driving the shortage
Several structural factors are running at the same time, which is part of why the shortfall keeps growing.
The retirement wave is the most immediate. Large cohorts of nurses and physicians trained in the decades after the baby boom are now leaving the workforce. Replacement pipelines were not built to absorb exits at this pace.
Demand is also rising from the demographic side. The population aged 65 and older uses healthcare at two to three times the rate of younger adults. As this group grows, total care demand rises even if per-capita utilization stays flat.
Training capacity has not kept up. Medical school enrollment has grown more than 35% since 2002, but residency slots are constrained by federal funding caps. You can graduate more doctors without creating more places for them to train, and the residency bottleneck has not moved.
Burnout is cutting into mid-career supply. More than 52% of nurses considered leaving their positions as of the 2022 ANA survey. Workers leaving the field at year eight or year fifteen represent a different kind of supply problem than the graduation pipeline, and it is harder to fix with enrollment.
Finally, the aggregate numbers obscure a geographic mismatch. Even where supply looks adequate nationally, the distribution does not match where patients live. Rural communities face shortages far worse than national averages, and the gap is expected to widen through 2030.
Projections through 2030
By 2030, HRSA projects a shortage of 63,720 full-time registered nurses. The AAMC's 2036 physician shortage projection of up to 86,000 is trending toward that level by 2030. The NRHA projects a 23% decline in rural physicians from retirements. The ANA projects more than 1 million total nurse retirements that new graduates will not be able to replace fast enough.
Globally, the WHO projects a shortfall of 11 million health workers by 2030.
The BLS projects healthcare will generate around 1.9 million job openings per year through 2034. The demand is not in question. The gap is between that demand and available, trained workers, and the data point consistently in one direction through the end of the decade.
Conclusion
These shortages are not a post-pandemic hangover. The underlying drivers, an aging physician and nursing workforce, an aging patient population, a training pipeline that cannot scale fast enough, and a geographic distribution that leaves rural communities chronically underserved, were present before 2020 and are projected to persist well past it.
For healthcare organizations working in this environment, our staffing industry research covers the broader workforce picture. See also how virtual and remote support models are being used to reduce administrative burden on clinical staff.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment Projections 2024-2034. Released August 2025.
- Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections From 2021 to 2036. March 2024.
- World Health Organization. Health Workforce Crisis Q&A and Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030. Updated February 2025.
- American Nurses Association / American Nurses Foundation. Nurse Survey. 2022.
- Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Health Workforce Projections. November 2022.
- NSI Nursing Solutions. National Health Care Retention and RN Staffing Report. 2024.
- American Hospital Association. 2025 Health Care Workforce Scan. 2024.
- American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science (ASCLS). Clinical Laboratory Personnel Shortage.
- American Journal of Medicine. Allied Health Professionals Shortage. 2024.
- National Rural Health Association (NRHA). Rural Physician Workforce Analysis. 2025.
- U.S. Joint Economic Committee. Addressing Rural Health Worker Shortages. January 2024.
- KFF. Mental Health Care Health Professional Shortage Areas. December 2024.
- Definitive Healthcare. Allied Health Workforce Report. 2023.
- Alliance for Physical Therapy Quality and Innovation (APTQI). Physical Therapy Workforce Shortage Analysis. 2023.
- National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). National Nursing Workforce Study. 2022.