Nursing: Supply and Demand through 2020 analyzes the growing need for qualified nurses. The study projects that the economy will create 1.6 million job openings for nurses through 2020. Yet, there will not be enough nurses to fill those openings. We project the nursing workforce will be facing a shortfall of roughly 200,000 nursing professionals by 2020.

1. Nursing:
Supply and Demand through 2020
Anthony P. Carnevale, Nicole Smith, Artem Gulish
February 25, 2015

2. Overview
• There are 3.5 million nursing professionals working
today.
• There will be 1.6 million job openings for nurses
between 2010 and 2020.

3. Nursing Job Openings
• There are 1.2 million openings for registered nurses.
• There are 370,000 openings for licensed practical
nurses.
• About 700,000 of these job openings are newly
created while 880,000 jobs will become available due
to Baby Boomers’ retirement.

4. • The demand for nurses remains robust, with job
openings accounting for 1.6 million open positions
between 2010 and 2020.
• The current demand is 3.5 million and will be 4.15
million in 2020.
3.5
Million
4.15
Million
What’s the demand for nurses?

5. 12
Average number of U.S. nursing professionals per 1000 residents.
Nursing is the largest of all licensed health professions

6. North Dakota,
Washington D.C., and
Rhode Island have the
highest concentration
of nursing
professionals, while
California, Georgia,
and Nevada have the
lowest.

7. The nursing profession offers some of the best
career opportunities for qualified job seekers,
with the largest expected job growth of any
occupation and the highest annual median wage
of the top ten occupations with the largest
expected job growth.

8. • Driven by a growing aging U.S. population, increased health
coverage and disposable income, and changing healthcare delivery
models, the nursing profession has been experiencing steady
growth from the 1980s to present.
• The growth of nursing professionals has been so rapid that the U.S.
currently has the largest nursing workforce in the world.It is poised
to continue growing.

9. Shortage
• By 2020, the U.S. could face a shortfall of 200,000
nurses.

10. • Individuals who will be unable to get into the
profession.
• Healthcare institutions unable to recruit sufficient
nursing workforce.
• Patient safety and quality of care.
1 Aiken, L.H. and Cheung. Nurse Workforce Challenges in the United States: Implications for Policy. OECD Health Working Papers, No.35. (2008).
Failure to prepare for incoming cohorts, and failure to
train a sufficient number of nurses will have major
consequences for:

11. • The lack of capacity at nursing schools creates a
bottleneck in the supply of nurses

12. • Both AND and BSN nursing programs fall short of
meeting demand

13. • Lack of faculty and
lack of clinical
placements are the
two major hurdles
to training more
nurses.

14. • While the demand for more educated nurses is on the
rise, the supply cannot keep up due to the rising
demands on the limited number of doctoral nursing
faculty.

15. • Doctoral nurses cannot train a sufficient number of
new doctoral nurses and more BSN and MSN nurses
at the same time.

16. For more information:
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See the full report at: cew.georgetown.edu/nursing2020