Registered Nurses (RNs) play a key function within the well being care workforce and contribute to the well being and well-being of thousands and thousands of Individuals, working in hospitals, nursing houses, doctor’s workplaces, and residential well being providers. The occupation has been experiencing shortages, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and are predicted to proceed over the following decade because the 65 and older inhabitants within the U.S. grows, growing well being care wants. Demand for nurses can even probably enhance to fulfill new necessities for nurse staffing ranges in nursing services.
Immigrant employees may assist deal with these wants. As of 2022, there have been about 500,000 immigrant nurses within the U.S., accounting for about one in six of the shut to three.2 million RNs.1 Nonetheless, immigration stays a hot-button political difficulty with ongoing anti-immigrant rhetoric and up to date actions and proposals to restrict immigration and immigrants’ function within the workforce. These actions embody the federal authorities extending its pause on the processing of latest visa purposes for worldwide nurses in June 2024. The pause has been in place since April 2023 and, at the moment, the federal government is just processing purposes submitted on or earlier than December 2021. Laws has been proposed to extend employment-based visas for nurses, though it has remained stalled since 2023. Visa alternatives for nurses may additionally doubtlessly be expanded by means of administrative motion, for instance through H-1B visas, although they’d have limitations.
These visa restrictions may exacerbate current shortages within the nursing workforce and negatively affect the U.S. labor market and financial system extra broadly, notably given the rising function of foreign-educated nurses in U.S. hospitals. KFF evaluation of information from the American Hospital Affiliation (AHA) Annual Survey exhibits that the general share of hospitals reporting hiring foreign-educated RNs has almost doubled between 2010 and 2022, and a rising share of hospitals report hiring an growing variety of foreign-educated RNs to fill vacancies over time.
General, 32% of hospitals accounting for almost half (45%) of all hospital beds say they employed foreign-educated RNs in 2022, twice the share in 2010, when 16% of hospitals accounting for a few quarter (23%) of all hospital beds mentioned they employed foreign-educated RNs (Determine 1). As well as, between 2010 and 2022, the share of hospitals saying they employed extra foreign-educated nurses to assist fill RN vacancies in comparison with the earlier 12 months rose from 2% of hospitals representing 3% of hospital beds to 14% of hospitals representing 22% of hospital beds (Determine 2).
