A survey of hospitals and health systems in Minnesota found employee departures have declined, with improvement in the job vacancy rate.
Responses from more than 100 health care providers to a Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA) survey found that exits from the hospital and health care workforce fell by 7%.
“This relative stability shows what we have been saying: hospitals and health systems are great places to work and that we value our employees,” said MHA president and CEO Rahul Koranne.
Other bright spots:
- Total hospital and health system employment rose by 1% in 2024 to 80,465 workers, with 11,705 hires
- After a nearly double-digit decline last year, physician employment grew slightly
- Improvements in exits (employees leaving or changing jobs) helped lower the overall vacancy rate by nearly 2 percentage points, to 11.8%
- For the first time in four years, hospitals and health systems saw an increase in full time workers, up by about half a percentage point to 55.1%
Hospital and health system workforce diversity rose for the 11th consecutive year. Overall diversity rate is sitting at 15.26%, up 0.6% from the year before. Clinical staff reported the biggest increase in diversity with a +1.26% change.
Demographics remain a sign of potential difficulty for the health care workforce. About 1 in 6 physicians will be retirement age in the next five years. LPNs actually top that for the first time, with 18.2% hitting retirement age by 2030.
“An aging workforce combined with an aging patient population presents major risks for hospitals and patients. Added to this are increasing labor and supplies costs (both up 6%), widespread negative operating margins (40% of all MN hospitals), and potentially disastrous cuts in Medicaid. This has resulted in an unprecedented risk for access to quality health care in our state.”
For more information or interviews, contact Tim Nelson at tnelson@mnhospitals.org
