U.S. hospital nursing is a large and growing part of the registered-nurse workforce. In May 2025, general medical and surgical hospitals employed about 1.9 million registered nurses, while the broader occupation accounted for about 3.4 million U.S. jobs. The figures below use registered-nurse data as the best national proxy for hospital nurses because national datasets generally classify workers by occupation and industry rather than by a single “hospital nurse” category.
Contents
- How many nurses work in hospitals and healthcare?
- Hospital nurse pay and earnings
- Education and workforce composition
- Employment outlook and annual openings
- Projected RN supply and demand
- Geographic variation in the RN workforce
How many nurses work in hospitals and healthcare?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted about 3.4 million registered-nurse jobs in May 2025. General medical and surgical hospitals employed about 1.9 million of those nurses, equal to 56% of RN employment. These employment estimates describe jobs reported by employers during the May 2025 measurement period, not unique people or full-time-equivalent positions. (Occupational Employment and Wages – May 2025)
Other healthcare settings accounted for substantial portions of the workforce:
- Physicians’ offices employed 232,420 registered nurses in May 2025.
- Home healthcare services employed 198,180 registered nurses.
- The public sector employed 537,990 registered nurses.
The hospital figure is therefore substantial, but it does not represent the entire nursing workforce. RNs also work in outpatient care, patients’ homes, public agencies, residential facilities, education, and other settings. The industry figures should be read alongside the occupation-wide total because the BLS classifies the job by both occupation and employing industry.
For longer-term planning, the BLS used 3,465,400 RN jobs as the 2025 base year for its 2025–2035 employment projections. It projects 3,660,100 RN jobs in 2035. That is a projected numerical increase of 194,700 jobs over the period. (Registered Nurses: Occupational Outlook Handbook)
Hospital nurse pay and earnings
The median annual wage for U.S. registered nurses was $97,550 in May 2025. The distribution was wide: the lowest-paid 10% earned less than $68,940 annually, while the highest-paid 10% earned more than $137,470. These are national wage estimates for registered nurses across industries, so they do not describe every hospital role or individual compensation package. (Registered Nurses: Occupational Outlook Handbook)
Industry-specific medians show how pay varied by work setting in May 2025:
| RN employment setting | Median annual wage |
|---|---|
| State, local, and private hospitals | $100,220 |
| Government, excluding state and local education and hospitals | $110,780 |
| Ambulatory healthcare services | $91,230 |
| Nursing and residential care facilities | $84,300 |
| State, local, and private educational services | $78,620 |
The hospital median was above the overall RN median, while government employment outside the specified education and hospital categories had the highest median in this comparison. Ambulatory healthcare services, nursing and residential care facilities, and educational services had lower medians than hospitals in the same BLS data. The categories are not interchangeable: differences can reflect job mix, geography, employer type, experience, schedules, and other factors that are not quantified here.
The National Council of State Boards of Nursing reported a 10%–16% increase in nurses’ median pre-tax annual earnings between its 2022 and 2024 workforce studies. That finding describes the NCSBN study’s nursing workforce population and period; it is not a hospital-only wage series and should not be combined directly with the BLS May 2025 wage estimates. (U.S. Nursing Workforce By the Numbers: Results of the 2024 National Nursing Workforce Study)
Education and workforce composition
The 2024 NCSBN national workforce study found that 88% of U.S. RNs who maintained licensure were actively involved in nursing. Just under three-quarters of actively involved nurses worked full time. These measures concern workforce participation and work status, not the share employed specifically in hospitals. (U.S. Nursing Workforce By the Numbers: Results of the 2024 National Nursing Workforce Study)
Education levels were also notable. NCSBN reported that 73% of RNs held a baccalaureate degree or higher in 2024. This is a national RN workforce measure and does not indicate that every hospital position requires a bachelor’s degree. It does show the educational composition reported in the study at that point in time.
The same study reported that 7.2% of nurses identified as Latino or Hispanic in 2024. NCSBN said that share was two times the share reported in 2015. The comparison describes the study’s reported workforce composition across those two study points; it is not a projection of future representation.
Workforce retention is another important part of the picture. About 138,000 nurses had left the workforce since 2022, according to the 2024 NCSBN study. In addition, 40% of RNs reported plans to leave the profession within the next five years. NCSBN estimated that this intent-to-leave figure could represent 1.6 million nurses by 2029. The 1.6 million figure is an estimate based on reported intentions, not a count of confirmed departures. (U.S. Nursing Workforce By the Numbers: Results of the 2024 National Nursing Workforce Study)
Employment outlook and annual openings
The BLS projects registered-nurse employment to grow 6% from 2025 to 2035. It projects about 180,800 RN openings per year on average during that period. Openings can result from employment growth as well as the need to replace workers who leave the occupation, so annual openings are not the same as the net increase in jobs. (Registered Nurses: Occupational Outlook Handbook)
For context, the BLS projects 3% growth for all occupations from 2025 to 2035. The 6% RN projection is therefore higher than the overall occupational projection. The healthcare diagnosing and treating practitioners group is projected to grow 9% over the same period, compared with 6% for RNs. These comparisons place nursing within the wider employment outlook; they do not predict the number of hospital-specific openings.
The projection also provides two complementary ways to understand demand. The 2025–2035 RN job count is expected to rise from the BLS base of 3,465,400 to 3,660,100, an increase of 194,700 jobs. At the same time, an average of 180,800 openings per year is expected across the decade. The first figure describes net projected growth, while the second describes the expected flow of opportunities.
Projected RN supply and demand
The Health Resources and Services Administration models RN supply and demand in full-time equivalents, or FTEs. These are modeled forecasts rather than headcounts, and they should not be compared as if they were the same measure as BLS employment jobs. HRSA’s national projections show supply remaining below demand, although the percentage gap narrows over time. (Nurse Workforce Projections, 2023–2038)
| Forecast year | Projected RN supply | Projected RN demand | Supply coverage | Projected shortage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2028 | 3,034,360 FTEs | 3,301,690 FTEs | 92% | 8% nationally |
| 2033 | 3,269,070 FTEs | 3,473,760 FTEs | 94% | Not stated as a national percentage in the supplied figures |
| 2038 | 3,509,970 FTEs | 3,618,930 FTEs | 97% | 3%, or 108,960 FTEs |
In 2028, projected RN supply covers 92% of projected national demand. HRSA projects supply coverage at 94% in 2033 and 97% in 2038. The 2038 forecast still leaves a projected shortage of 108,960 FTEs, despite the higher coverage percentage.
The modeled gap is larger outside metropolitan areas. In 2028, projected RN supply adequacy is 24% below demand in nonmetro areas, compared with 5% below demand in metro areas. In 2033, the corresponding gaps are 18% and 4%. By 2038, HRSA projects nonmetro supply adequacy to be 11% below demand and metro adequacy to be 2% below demand. These are forecast differences in modeled adequacy, not counts of hospital vacancies.
Geographic variation in the RN workforce
National averages conceal large projected differences among states. HRSA projects California will have a 22% RN shortage in 2038, the largest among states in the cited forecast. It projects 2038 shortages of 20% in North Carolina and Georgia, 18% in Michigan, 17% in Washington, and 16% in Maryland.
Additional state projections include a 13% shortage in Oklahoma, 12% in South Carolina, 11% in Louisiana, and 8% in Virginia in 2038. These state-level percentages are modeled forecasts of RN supply relative to demand, not observed shortage rates in 2038 and not hospital-only estimates.
The same HRSA forecast projects Wyoming will have a 79% RN oversupply relative to demand in 2038. That result highlights why national and state figures can tell different stories: a projected national shortage can coexist with projected oversupply in an individual state. Differences in population, projected demand, workforce distribution, and modeled supply all affect the geographic result.
Taken together, the employment, wage, workforce, and forecast measures describe a profession with a large hospital presence, above-$100,000 hospital-setting median pay, substantial projected annual openings, and persistent modeled supply gaps. The measures cover different populations and definitions: BLS employment and wage figures are employer-survey estimates, NCSBN figures describe its 2024 national workforce study, and HRSA figures are full-time-equivalent supply and demand forecasts. Keeping those scopes separate is essential when interpreting hospital nurse statistics.