Nurses have always been scarce in times of low unemployment. But the current shortage appears to be different, fueled by generational attitudes and dissatisfaction with the nurses' lot under managed care. The nurse workforce is also aging. The percentage of nurses under 30 years old fell from 30.3 percent in 1983 to 9.1 percent last year, according to federal data. The average age of nurses was 37.4 in 1983 and hit 42.3 last year, partly because of growing numbers of women and men entering nursing as a second career.
Young people are slow to replenish the ranks.
The shortage is not just about sheer numbers of nurses, employers say. In some ways, the problem has brought nurses' unions and employers together. But the shortage also has made nurses more aggressive in protesting their working conditions. Nurses went on strike to win limits on mandatory overtime at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester last year, but the issue is widespread. At Jordan Hospital in Plymouth, for instance, the Massachusetts Nurses Association negotiating chairwoman, Cece Crowell, receives four or five formal complaints a month from nurses worried they will make an error while working mandatory overtime shifts or handling too many patients.