Monday October 28, 2024
Healthcare Workforce Report
The ASHHRA Healthcare Workforce Report is based on extensive data from PwC’s Saratoga HR Benchmarking study and provides valuable insights into the current state of the healthcare workforce, helping you make informed decisions to enhance your organization's performance and patient care.
2026 Healthcare Workforce Report
From recovery to resilience: rewiring healthcare’s workforce operating model
2026 Context and Benchmarking Methodology
Healthcare organizations enter 2026 facing a workforce challenge that is both familiar and fundamentally different. Persistent talent shortages, evolving workforce expectations, increasing labor costs and continued pressure on operating margins remain important concerns. At the same time, healthcare leaders are being asked to look beyond near-term staffing gaps and answer a more strategic question: Does the organization have the workforce capacity, productivity and talent supply required to deliver its mission over the next several years?
This report explores that question using workforce benchmarks from PwC Saratoga, PwC’s HR and workforce benchmarking platform. Saratoga transforms standardized HR and workforce data into comparable measures that allow organizations to assess performance against relevant peers, identify trends over time and better understand where workforce outcomes may signal broader business risk or opportunity.
The annual Saratoga benchmarking study generates more than 30,000 benchmarks across 1,000+ workforce metrics, based on data submitted by hundreds of participating organizations. Healthcare benchmarks can be analyzed across dimensions including organization size, revenue and hospital characteristics, providing HR leaders with a more relevant point of comparison than broad cross-industry averages alone.
For the 2026 ASHHRA report, we have evaluated five years of healthcare workforce data, covering 2021 through 2025, with the distribution of 2025 results across participating healthcare organizations. The resulting series shows changes in annual benchmark medians and how the underlying patterns have evolved. Annual medians are independent cross-sectional organization benchmarks, not a fixed longitudinal panel. Participating organizations and sample sizes vary by year.
The report focuses on six interconnected dimensions of workforce performance:
- Workforce productivity
- Turnover, attrition and vacancy
- Recruitment and talent attraction
- Inclusion
- Well-being and work design
- Workforce resilience and internal talent supply
These topics are intentionally considered together. Workforce productivity cannot be understood without considering vacancies, turnover and employee capacity. Recruitment effectiveness is shaped by retention and the strength of internal talent pipelines. Inclusion is reflected not only in workforce representation, but also in advancement, mobility and employee experience. And well-being increasingly reflects how work itself is designed—not simply the benefits or programs offered to employees.
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As you explore the report and identify specific data to make business decisions, please reach out to the Michael Berland of the Saratoga team at michael.berland@pwc.com to find out how to become a Saratoga member and get access to the complete benchmark dataset.
Executive Summary
Across five years of Saratoga benchmarks, the healthcare story is one of progress with unresolved capacity risks. Median revenue per FTE was approximately 30% higher in 2025 than in 2021, while median total turnover was four percentage points lower. Yet the median profit-per-FTE series remained below its 2022 high, first-year turnover reached 39.1%, vacancy exceeded its 2021 median, and applicants per requisition remained below the all-industry benchmark.
These independently calculated benchmarks do not prove a single causal story. They suggest, however, that improvement in individual workforce indicators can coexist with persistent end-to-end constraints. Participating healthcare organizations report strong offer acceptance amid thin applicant pools and lengthy start cycles. Leadership representation medians are lower than workforce representation medians. Well-being indicators point to questions about work design, but the available Saratoga metrics do not directly measure burnout.
The Core Thesis
The next era of healthcare workforce strategy will not be won by a better recruiting campaign, a single retention program, or a broader benefits menu. It will be won by redesigning the workforce operating model: demand and capacity planning, manager capacity, early-tenure experience, internal talent flow, work design, and accountable measurement.
Seven Findings Across Six Workforce Lenses
1 | Revenue per FTE rose; clinical output remains unproven | Revenue per FTE reached $278,804, 30% above 2021, while profit per FTE was still 23% below its 2022 high. Nominal revenue-per-FTE movement should be tested against margin, quality, staffing mix, vacancies and workforce health. |
2 | Overall turnover declined; first-year retention remains a challenge | Overall turnover fell to 18.2%, but first-year turnover increased to 39.1%. First-year turnover remains elevated, but the benchmark cannot locate an exact failure point within the first year. |
3 | Healthcare’s applicant funnel is thinner than the broader-market median | The median organization saw 13 applicants per requisition versus 23 across all industries, while offer acceptance remained 92.3%. Strengthen the top of funnel before overcorrecting the offer. |
4 | Recruiter throughput may mask capacity strain | Healthcare recruiters delivered 138 hires each versus 96 across industries, yet time to start remained six days longer. High throughput can be a capacity achievement or an experience risk. |
5 | The inclusion bottleneck is advancement and experience | Women represent 79.9% of the workforce but 51.0% of executives. Racially/ethnically diverse employees represent 34.9% of the workforce but 15.5% of executives. Representation without flow will not close the gap. |
6 | Well-being has to move from programs to work design | The median reporting healthcare organization had 97.4% of employees not eligible to work mostly remotely. In healthcare, flexibility is created through schedules, team design, workload, autonomy and manager practices—not location alone. |
7 | Healthcare cannot recruit its way out of the supply problem | Mobility and promotion remain below broader-market medians, while 30.5% of employees have less than two years of service. Internal supply should become a strategic growth engine. |
2025 Healthcare Workforce Report
A Holistic Report on Workforce Trends in Healthcare
This report summarizes key healthcare-specific findings derived from PwC’s Saratoga HR Benchmarking study, updated using the 2025 dataset. The annual Saratoga study generates over 30,000 benchmarks for over 1,000 metrics from data provided by hundreds of organizations; healthcare-specific benchmarks are categorized by hospital size, revenue and/or type of hospital. The report utilizes a combination of detailed metrics, trend analysis, and industry trends to provide perspectives for HR leaders within the healthcare industry.
The report is broken down into five key sections:
- Turnover
- Inclusion
- Recruitment Effectiveness
- Candidate Experience
- Compensation and Benefits
The benchmarks in these categories may help you understand the general trends and current situation of the healthcare workforce in the United States. Unless otherwise noted, numbers included within the report are median values from our 2025 study.
As you explore the report and identify specific data to make business decisions, please reach out to the Michael Berland of the Saratoga team at michael.berland@pwc.com to find out how to become a Saratoga member and get access to the complete benchmark dataset.
Executive Summary
The healthcare workforce is navigating a period of profound change shaped by demographic pressures, persistent financial constraints, rapid technological adoption, and shifting employee expectations. Building on Saratoga benchmark data, this report examines workforce trends specific to hospitals and healthcare systems. While turnover rates have eased slightly since the pandemic-era peak, healthcare continues to experience higher-than-average churn compared to other industries. Coupled with persistent nursing shortages, uneven inclusion progress, and growing challenges in recruitment and candidate experience, HR leaders should adopt a data-driven and strategic approach to maintain stability and advance organizational performance.
Several key forces define the current healthcare workforce landscape:
- Persistent Retention Challenges: Turnover, particularly among early-tenure bedside nurses, continues to disrupt continuity of care and erode financial sustainability.
- Evolving Inclusive Priorities: Representation gains are uneven, with women and racially/ethnically diverse leaders underrepresented at the executive level despite strong middle management participation.
- Recruitment Under Pressure: Healthcare roles attract fewer applicants per requisition than other industries, making speed, candidate experience, and brand positioning crucial.
- Candidate Experience Gaps: Lengthy hiring timelines hinder hospitals’ ability to compete for scarce talent.
- Compensation and Benefits Realignment: Regional disparities, inflationary pressures, and increasing employee demand for nontraditional benefits are forcing HR leaders to revisit total rewards strategies.
- Technology as an Enabler: AI-enabled workforce planning, predictive analytics, and automation are reshaping how organizations approach retention, recruitment, and employee engagement.
Hospitals and healthcare systems that succeed in this environment can balance financial stewardship with strategic investments in people, harnessing data to guide decisions and aligning workforce strategies with the mission of patient care.
This report summarizes Saratoga benchmarks related to the current state of the healthcare industry workforce, based on responses from 127 organizations in the healthcare industry. All results are median values unless otherwise specified.
To access the complete set of benchmarks with all percentiles, please contact the Saratoga team at saratoga@pwc.com.
2024 Healthcare Workforce Report
A Holistic Report on Workforce Trends in Healthcare
This report summarizes key healthcare-specific findings derived from PwC’s Saratoga HR Benchmarking study. The annual Saratoga study generates over 30,000 benchmarks for over 1,000 metrics from data provided by hundreds of organizations; healthcare-specific benchmarks are categorized by hospital size, revenue and/or type of hospital.
The report is broken down into four categories:
- Turnover
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
- Talent Acquisition
- Compensation
The benchmarks in these categories may help you understand the general trends and current situation of the healthcare workforce in the United States. However, if you need specific data to make business decisions, please reach out to the Saratoga team at saratoga@pwc.com to get access to the complete benchmark dataset.
Executive Summary
Over the past few years, organizations across various industries have experienced multiple challenges: a global pandemic, international conflicts and accelerated technological adoption. During this time, organizations had to adapt with remote/flexible work and a period of increased turnover coined “the Great Resignation”.
For most industries, the disruption of the pandemic has dissipated with a noticeable decrease in turnover, resulting in many organizations shifting their focus to promoting internal mobility and reexamining their existing team structures. Amidst rapid technological advancements, evolving workforce expectations and ongoing economic uncertainties, HR professionals and business leaders are increasing their use of HR data to make decisions and constantly seeking data-driven insights to stay competitive.
The healthcare industry faces unique challenges, including the lingering effects of the global pandemic, rising costs and an aging population. These factors significantly impact workforce dynamics, making it important for HR leaders to rely on data-driven insights to navigate these complexities and maintain a competitive edge.
This report summarizes Saratoga benchmarks related to the current state of the healthcare industry workforce, based on responses from 109 organizations in the healthcare industry. All results are median values unless otherwise specified.
To access the complete set of benchmarks with all percentiles, please contact the Saratoga team at saratoga@pwc.com.