August 1, 2022
CONTACT
Shannan Schmitt
Senior Director, Communications
sschmitt@healthcollab.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEARLY 6,000 GREATER CINCINNATI HOSPITAL JOBS UNFILLED
Region’s vacancy rate of 10 percent is the highest it’s been in 15 years
Cincinnati, OH – A recent survey conducted by The Health Collaborative (THC) shows more than 5,800 healthcare jobs were left unfilled at the end of 2021 for the participating member hospitals. This number is two times higher than previous years. Further, our region’s healthcare vacancy rate is 10 percent, far higher than we have experienced in the last 15 years.
The Annual Employee Workforce Survey gathers data on the region’s supply and demand of our hospital workforce.
“Vacancies have been trending upward for quite some time and COVID-19 accelerated that rate to the highest levels we’ve seen in years,” shares Jason Bubenhofer, THC’s Senior Manager, Business Intelligence. “The solution is multi-faceted: schools’ willingness to open more capacity for nurses, outreach in high school and even junior high school, finding ways to recruit and maintain more instructors, and prioritizing retention strategies. The workforce issues in healthcare are severe, and this isn’t going to change anytime soon. THC not only provides and analyzes regional workforce data, but we convene our members to get after the short and long-term solutions.”
Key Findings:
- Nearly two dozen individual jobs have vacancy rates greater than 10 percent of the 60 job titles we survey. Vacancy rates spiked significantly in 2021 up to 10.5 percent, which is by far the highest vacancy rate going back to 2007. Jobs with highest vacancy rates include paramedic, LPN, echocardiograph technician, monitor tech, medical tech, and surgical lab tech.
- The nursing vacancy rate of 13.9 percent is the highest nursing vacancy rate since 2003.
- The RN vacancy rate in our region’s hospital systems grew an alarming 81% during 2021, to 13.9%, or about 1,500 unfilled nursing positions. While the pandemic exacerbated the problem, the RN vacancy rate has been climbing since 2016. This has created an environment where hospitals throughout the region have had to close needed beds due to lack of nursing staff.
- Retirement rates increased in 2021 to a level not seen since 2018. The average retirement age is 64.9 years, down from 65.1 years in 2020.
Survey data were collected in the spring of 2022 from seven participating hospitals/health systems: The Christ Hospital Health Network, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, CMH Regional/Clinton Memorial Hospital, Margaret Mary Health, St. Elizabeth Healthcare, TriHealth, and UC Health.
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ABOUT THE HEALTH COLLABORATIVE
The Health Collaborative is a non-profit, data-driven, convening organization located in Cincinnati, Ohio. We bring together healthcare stakeholders in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky and provides them with the actionable data to build a region that is healthy by design. For more information, please visit healthcollab.org.
