In general, the nurses who entered the profession during this period “are less and less numerous to occupy, over the years, a salaried job, hospital or not: they are 87% after five years of career, and only 79% after ten years, observes the statistical service of the social ministries.
Ten years after their first job, only 54% of these professionals are still employees of a public or private hospital, and 11% remain employed nurses, but for another type of employer, such as a nursing home or a public administration, according to this study.
An increasingly significant drop in the workforce
Some 7% change occupations while remaining employed in the hospital sector, for example within the administrative staff, the same proportion becoming employees in other functions and sectors. The proportion of those who remained in hospital after ten years has also “decreased over the generations”: it goes from 60% for nurses who started out between 1990 and 1994 to 50% for their counterparts who entered the profession between 2005 and 2009.
Some turn to liberal exercise: on a panel observed between 2006 and 2019, “13% are self-employed five years after their start, and 17% after ten years”, mainly in liberal exercise, sometimes mixed (liberal and salaried ), rarely within another profession.
5% of nurses no longer have a job in France after ten years
At the same time, 5% of these professionals no longer have a job in France after ten years (essentially unemployed, inactive or gone abroad), a proportion which rises to 11% after ten years. If the fact of becoming a mother “leads to a reduction in the volume of salaried work”, this “does not explain the exits from employment”, analyzes the DREES.
“How can we be surprised that underpaid, understaffed nurses (…) do not stay in the hospital?”, reacts in a press release the National Union of Nursing Professionals (SNPI-CFE CGC). Despite the Ségur de la Santé, the French salary remains 10% lower than the European nursing salary, points out the union. The ratio of patients per nurse reaches him “often double” international standards. “While there are already 60,000 vacant nursing positions (…) there is an urgent need to act” with a “Marshall plan” for the hospital, asks the SNPI.