Nurses are being offered six figure salaries, but still choosing to leave the profession. Here's why

To be clear, there is not a lack of people who want to be nurses in the U.S. Schools are seeing their enrollment increase, driven both by the profession’s salary and the low likelihood that its services can be displaced by artificial intelligence. Every year, schools turn down tens of thousands of qualified applicants.

Turnover rates for existing nurses, however, are on the rise. Registered nurse turnovers last year saw a 1.2% increase from the year prior, according to NSI Nursing Solutions. That’s leading to some staffing shortages at hospitals. NSI estimates the current national RN shortage at 158,600, which works out to 43 unfilled full-time RN positions per hospital.

Why are nurses leaving?

There’s no singular reason for the exodus of nurses. Some say they’re burned out as incidents of verbal abuse and workplace violence increase. Others point to insufficient staffing levels, meaning their own workloads become oppressive.

A recent survey from the University of Pennsylvania found that some 37% of nurses left the field earlier than planned, despite 90% saying they were satisfied with nursing as a career.

“Premature workforce exits are driven by modifiable organizational issues, not problems with the profession itself,” said Matthew D. McHugh, co-author of the study. “Warnings about nursing shortages should be treated with caution given the existence of an untapped latent labor force willing to work at the bedside if working conditions were better.”

They’re willing to come back under the right conditions.

The good news is many nurses who leave the profession are willing to come back, according to UPenn.

Hospitals that are willing to adequately fill their nursing staff and offer flexible scheduling options are more likely to successfully retain and recruit back bedside nurses who have left other facilities. Of the more than 4,000 nurses who left direct care positions the study spoke with, eight percent were employed outside healthcare, 36% were unemployed and 56% were retired.

“The problem is not that there are too few trained and qualified nurses but, rather, that there are too few hospitals prioritizing what nurses care most about: safe patient care,” wrote the RN authors of a 2025 paper. “Only approximately one-half of nurses say that the actions of hospital management show that patient safety is a top priority.”

Hospitals have an incentive to bring back those nurses. Some studies have shown hospitals that have higher nurse turnover have a higher number of patient falls.

There are also financial implications. One study by a researcher at Emory University found that it costs Emory Healthcare $78,000 every time a nurse leaves, since the facility needs to rely on contract labor as it recruits and trains replacements.