8 out of 10 Sajik Nurses Leave Hospital Within 5 Years

KNA Reanalyzes 'Hospital Nursing Staff Deployment Status Survey'
57% of New Nurses Resign Within One Year

Among hospital nurse resignations, 8 out of 10 were low-experience nurses with less than 5 years of service.

On the 19th, the Korean Nurses Association analyzed the 'Hospital Nursing Workforce Deployment Status Survey' conducted by the Hospital Nurses Society and found that as of the end of 2022, 80.6% of nurses who resigned from hospitals had less than 5 years of experience.

Among the resignations, those with less than 1 year of experience accounted for the largest share at 43.4%. Those with 1 year to less than 3 years accounted for 20.5%, and those with 3 years to less than 5 years accounted for 16.7%, showing that the shorter the experience, the higher the resignation rate.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The most common reason for leaving the hospital was 'excessive workload and job maladaptation' at 20.8%. Other reasons included transferring to another hospital (14.4%), illness (11.2%), career change (10.8%), shift and night work (6.3%), difficulty balancing work and family (5.8%), and dissatisfaction with salary (3.7%). The rate of 'career change,' meaning leaving the nursing profession altogether, increased by 1.4 percentage points from 9.4% in 2018 to 10.8% in 2022.

The resignation rate of hospital nurses has also been rising annually, from 14.5% in 2020 to 15.8% in 2021, and 16% in 2022. In particular, the resignation rate within one year for new nurses was 57.4% in 2022, up 14.7 percentage points from 42.7% in 2018. The main reason for resignation was 'excessive workload and maladaptation,' accounting for 40.2%.

The Nurses Association stated, "Fundamental solutions must be established to address the issue of professional nurses not being able to stay long-term and leaving the medical field," adding, "Measures are needed to protect nurses from harmful and hazardous factors that inevitably arise due to the nature of the profession."