facing challenges<\/strong><\/a> that could have consequences for health across the continent.<\/p>\nHere\u2019s how they stack up.<\/p>\n
An ageing workforce<\/p>\n
In about 20 countries worldwide \u2013 mostly wealthy European nations \u2013 the number of new nurses entering the workforce is not keeping pace with demand for their services, the report found.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s due to a combination of nurses who retire and are not replaced quickly enough, as well as an overall ageing population with more complex health needs.<\/p>\n
In 2023, for example, 31 per cent of Europe\u2019s nurses were under the age of 35, while 21 per cent were 55 or older. But in Eastern Europe, older nurses make up a greater share of the workforce than younger nurses.<\/p>\n
Reliance on international recruitment<\/p>\n
In 23 European countries with data, 14 per cent of nurses are foreign-born, a level that is on par with the rest of the globe but makes these areas reliant on international recruitment to fill gaps in the workforce.<\/p>\n
Another 10 per cent of nurses were trained elsewhere.<\/p>\n
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The WHO report said wealthy countries have made \u201cinadequate investments in education\u201d in their own countries, and that their efforts to bring more nurses in from lower-income countries are worsening nursing shortages there.<\/p>\n
There are \u201cstriking inequalities in workforce distribution which have driven a surge in international recruitment and inequitable migration patterns,\u201d Howard Catton, CEO of the umbrella group International Council of Nurses, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Training new talent<\/p>\n
Despite its challenges, Europe has a more robust pipeline for new nurses than most parts of the world. For every 100,000 people, there were 42.7 new nurse graduates in 2023, compared with a rate of 25.3 globally.<\/p>\n
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Many of the region\u2019s new nurses come from Central Asia, with western Europe producing far fewer graduates.<\/p>\n
The average wage for entry-level nurses in Europe was $2,508 (\u20ac2,205) per month, the report found. Even after taking purchasing power into account, European nurses had the highest starting pay in the world.<\/p>\n
The region is also better-equipped to help nurses advance their careers, according to the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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About two in three countries worldwide have leadership development programmes for nurses, with the highest rate in Europe at 78 per cent.<\/p>\n
But wealthy European countries should take steps to boost enrollment in nursing training programmes and incentivise nurses to stay in the profession, the report said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT Wealthy European countries\u2019 reliance on foreign-born nurses is exacerbating the shortage of 5.8 million nurses across the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,42733,45608,45607,4348,5770],"class_list":{"0":"post-98029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-health-in-data","12":"tag-health-personnel","13":"tag-health-worker","14":"tag-healthcare","15":"tag-nurses"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114500531947070872","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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