Healthcare jobs continue to grow
A closer look for nurses
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released jobs data for January 2026. Healthcare continues to grow, adding 82,000 jobs in January alone. While healthcare employment continues to expand, policies that impact nursing education financing are moving in the opposite direction. At a time when workforce demand is accelerating, limiting financial pathways into advanced nursing roles sends a contradictory message.
The breakdown:
- 50,000 in ambulatory health care services
- 18,000 in hospitals
- 13,000 in nursing and residential care facilities
The healthcare economy is a big deal in the overall U.S. economy — growth in the sector has been quietly increasing over the past decade. The healthcare workforce has become the backbone of the labor market, and attracting and keeping that workforce is mission critical for hospitals, health delivery, consumers, and public safety.
Where do these statistics leave the nursing workforce, which has a huge shortage throughout the healthcare sector? The data tells us jobs are moving from inpatient, hospital roles to outpatient, ambulatory roles — leaving a critical shortage for inpatient care.
The real reason
One study of RNs (noted in JAMA Network, Vol. 9, No. 2) who recently left a hospital staff nurse job indicated they would return to the hospital workforce if hospitals addressed the organizational issues driving RNs away. The top factors that would increase their likelihood of returning were: (1) adequate staffing, (2) flexible scheduling, and (3) better wages or benefits. Notably, some "nonretired" RNs, particularly those not currently employed, reported they would be willing to return if these conditions are met.
Trained, licensed, and prepared nurses returning to the workforce would have a meaningful effect on staffing ratios. The nursing retention problem will not be solved by educating and training more nurses. All the more reason to respond to nurses' requests, include them in executive decisions, and treat them with respect. Training more nurses into a system that is pushing experienced nurses out is fiscally inefficient and clinically unsafe. Retention must be treated as workforce infrastructure.
Reclassifying nurses creates many problems
The recent decision from the U.S. Department of Education to reclassify nursing outside of the "professional degree" loan category will, long-term, continue to hinder graduate-level nursing program candidates. Not including nursing as a professional degree is yet another barrier to nursing education — at the same time healthcare employment continues to expand, federal education policy is moving in the opposite direction.
The facts:
- Healthcare is growing (BLS data)
- Nursing shortages persist due to retention issues
- Advanced practice nurses are essential to ambulatory growth
- Graduate nursing education just became financially more restrictive
- That misalignment creates long-term system risk
The question is not whether healthcare will continue to grow — the data clearly shows that it will. The question is whether policy decisions today will support or constrain the nursing workforce needed to provide care throughout the continuum of care.