workforce shortages

Published on

Times Union

When people’s education, skills and experience are not put to work, the unused human capital is an economic loss to us all. Physicians, engineers, computer programmers and teachers enter our country legally every year through the US Refugee Admissions Program, are resettled in upstate New York and become permanent residents after one year. Unfortunately, many refugees with university educations and professional experience remain unemployed or underemployed, working in jobs that do not require a college degree…

…According to a University at Albany Center for Health Workforce Studies report, New York has workforce shortages in all health care settings. These shortages affect all of us when we must wait many months to see a specialist or get special tests or scans, or must wait many hours for care in short-staffed emergency rooms. Yet a 2020 Migration Policy Institute report estimated that 22,000 immigrants and refugees in New York with a least a four-year college degree in medical fields were unemployed or underemployed.

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Published on

Crain’s New York Business

The idea that students no longer need a degree to get good jobs in the city has found important validation in a new program that could turn out more qualified, but not necessarily degreed, candidates in the health care field…

…New York City’s total employment is down 5.5% from its record February 2020 level, according to the latest seasonally adjusted data from the state’s Department of Labor. In health care the labor shortage has reduced hospitals’ teams of clinical laboratory technologists and medical assistants, the Center for Health Workforce Studies found…

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Published on

The New Republic

As many as two-thirds of nurses, by some estimates, have said they’ve considered leaving their jobs over the past few months. Given the various horrors of the last year and a half, it’s easy to understand why: Stories of crowded city pandemic wards and medical staff sourcing their own personal protective equipment are impossible to shake. In The New Yorker, a nurse described ending most days by walking into her apartment, sliding down onto the floor, and crying…

…Jean Moore, the director of the Center for Health Workforce studies in Albany, New York, said that her department is waiting for better data to determine whether this particular crisis, exacerbated by the pandemic, portends a true shortage. “We suspect that some of what is happening in nursing reflects some broader issue around labor force participation,” she said. “What kids of jobs are doable, and which aren’t.” Anecdotally, she’s been hearing from colleagues that the staffing shortages are uneven. Hospitals in New York are saying they’re having trouble finding specialized nurses with experience in the intensive care unit or emergency department…

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