Why We Left: Nursing Workforce Report

Why We Left: 2023 Nursing Workforce Report

This report identifies chronic understaffing, hospital management, and other working conditions as the top issues driving nurses away from bedside care. It is based on responses by nearly 500 nurses to a survey of more than 2,400 MNA nurses who left a bedside nursing position within the past year and did not take a new position in an MNA-represented hospital. The survey found that the number one issue identified by nurses as the top factor driving them from the bedside was insufficient staffing, followed by stress or “burnout,” management issues, and other working conditions. As described in the 2020 “Deadly Shame” report from National Nurses United, the term “burnout” refers to the moral distress and moral injury nurses experience from working with insufficient nurse staffing, rationing and crisis standards of care, and limited resources, including support staff, beds, medications, or supplies.   

Watch the Panel Discussion on the 2023 Report

Why We Left: 2022 Nursing Workforce Report

This report identifies poor hospital management and chronic short staffing as the top issues driving nurses away from bedside care. Data in the report is from a survey of 748 nurses who left an MNA-represented nursing job in the past two years and did not take a new job in another MNA-represented facility. The survey focused on why nurses left their hospital job, what they are doing now, and whether they plan to return to bedside care under the current conditions in Minnesota hospitals.

Watch the Panel Discussion on the 2022 Report