Nursing
Jobs and Skills Australia’s Labour Market Data indicates that registered nurses are the most in-demand profession in NSW.
The introduction of minimum nursing minutes per resident in aged care has resulted in the aged care nursing workforce forecast to show a shortage of about 6000 registered nurses to meet 2024-25 demand.
What is the evidence on demand?
What is the
evidence on
supply?
What is the evidence on attrition?
Where are the problems most acute?
What factors are contributing?
Midwife demand is forecast to grow by about 22 per cent until 2026.
Midwifery
Teacher vacancies rose 11 per cent in NSW between May and August 2023.
Nous’ analysis indicates teachers are in the 90th percentile of most advertised jobs.
Teaching
Enrolments are limited due to an inability to find sufficient educators. Some 9 million Australians live in childcare deserts, where children outnumber childcare places 3:1.
The Australian Government’s childcare subsidy is only increasing ECEC worker demand.
Early childhood education and care
Information gaps
Comparable data on the vacancy rate across all workforces.
Australia has the most nursing graduates of any OECD country – more than enough to fill all in-demand nursing positions. But registered nurse graduates face post-university challenges, with one in four not employed six months after graduation.
Nursing
A 2019 Department of Health and Aged Care report found that nationally with no adjustments to supply, the midwifery workforce will be in oversupply by 12 per cent in 2030.
In the previous decade, four out of seven accredited midwife training programs saw decreasing graduations.
Midwifery
A 2022 NSW parliamentary inquiry found adequate teacher supply until at least 2025.
Nous’ analysis indicates that over the past seven years there has been a substantial increase in teacher course enrolments.
Teaching
Despite upticks in some ECEC courses there has been a decrease in overall course completion rates.
Early childhood education and care
Information gaps
Comparable data on the graduation or completion rate for relevant courses across all workforces.
Attrition rates in NSW have almost doubled in 2021-22 compared to the three previous years. The 2022-23 attrition rate was 13.1 per cent, which is 5 percentage points higher than in
2019-2020.
58 per cent of nurses intend to leave their current position within the next five years, of which 37 per cent intend to leave in the next 12 months.
Nursing
Between 2018 and 2023 the overall number of registered midwives was on track to decline by about 5 per cent.
Midwifery
In 2023 teacher resignations outstripped teacher retirements for the first time.
The median teacher tenure fell 15 per cent since 2017 (from 13.4 years to 11.4 years).
Teaching
A recent report revealed that staff turnover has increased in over 50 per cent of ECEC services surveyed since the start of the pandemic, while nearly half of job vacancies in ECEC services remain unfilled.
A 2021 survey, found that 73 per cent of educators wish to leave the sector in the next five years.
ECEC staff turnover ranges from 21 per cent to 37 per cent, with an average tenure of 3.6 years.
Early childhood education and care
Information gaps
Comparable data on the vacancy rate across all workforces.
Rural NSW faces larger nurse workforce deficits compared to metropolitan NSW.
Exacerbating the issue is the fact that the health system cannot absorb all graduates into fulltime roles, due to transitional training hurdles and graduates’ resistance to relocate to rural areas.
Nursing
There is poor deployment to regional and rural areas and some districts in Sydney that have experienced increased population growth.
Midwifery
Regional and rural localities have greater difficulties recruiting and retaining high quality teachers and school leaders, with less experienced teachers overrepresented.
Teaching
ECEC availability tends to be poorer in regional and remote areas.
Early childhood education and care
Information gaps
Comparable data on the workforce deficit across regional, rural, and metro NSW.
Publicly employed nurses and midwives reported feeling overworked and about 15 per cent experience PTSD symptoms at clinical levels.
Nursing
Challenging work conditions, high stress, and low remuneration force experienced midwives to look for new professions.
Midwifery
Two in three teachers feel burnt out, amid increasing complexity of student needs, excessive administrative burden, expanded responsibilities and increasing parental expectations.
Teaching
Challenges include poor pay and conditions, lack of recognition, stress, and unrealistic expectations from parents.
Early childhood teachers working in ECEC settings median wage is about 20 per cent lower than those of ECEC workers in primary schools.
Early childhood education and care
Information gaps
Comparable data on the vacancy rate across all workforces.
Nursing