Future of the U.S. Healthcare Industry: Labor Market Projections by 2028

The shortage of healthcare workers in the United States has been a long-standing concern, notably exacerbated during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The strain facing our healthcare systems continues to gain attention and urgency with politicians across the aisle now proposing legislation to mitigate this multifaceted issue (e.g., Bipartisan Primary Care and Health Workforce Act).

Please find an interactive map of projected labor surpluses or shortages below:

Professional associations and scholars have detailed the severity of expected shortages in the industry — with many studies focusing on physician shortages in particular. However, the environment is significantly different now than when many of these projections were made, during and shortly after the height of COVID.

To contribute to an understanding of this crisis, Mercer conducted a comprehensive review of available data and estimated future shortages (or surpluses) by occupation and geography. This report details insights on the projected supply and demand of multiple healthcare occupations (as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics) by 2028.

We sought to answer 4 interrelated questions:

Where will the greatest gaps between supply and demand be located?

Which healthcare occupations will see the greatest changes in supply and demand and thus surpluses/ shortages by 2028?

How will these gaps differ by occupation across geographies?

How do current trends in compensation by occupation and geography inform future talent strategies?

These questions are top of mind for stakeholders in the healthcare industry — we offer insights with the hope that healthcare systems will be better prepared to navigate future uncertainty.

Results from this study provide employers with a nuanced understanding of healthcare worker shortages, by occupation and in their local markets.

This, in turn, informs proactive business strategies on talent acquisition, retention, job design, staffing and compensation to ensure continued quality services to patients without disruption.

Given the difficulties many healthcare systems are currently experiencing in filling key roles, and projections suggesting that these challenges are not going away in the foreseeable future, the successful healthcare systems will be those that are proactive in:

Identifying and quantifying their labor risks and
Taking action to mitigate those risks.

Healthcare systems are not just competing with other healthcare systems — they are competing with other industries especially in filling their lower-wage/support positions which are critical to the overall delivery of quality patient care.

Healthcare systems will need to “up their game” if they want to win this competition for talent.