Health Care Workforce Recovery After the End of the COVID-19 Emergency

Thuy D. Nguyen, Christopher M. Whaley, Kosali Ilayperuma Simon, Jonathan H. Cantor

ResearchPosted on rand.org Jun 9, 2025Published in: JAMA (2025). DOI: 10.1001/jama.2025.8588

The COVID-19 pandemic caused drastic changes in health care utilization, delivery, and clinical organization finance. Initial research showed that health care employment did not fully recover by 2022's end, with trends varying by setting. Employment in physician offices reached full recovery, while long-term care facility staffing was 10.5% below prepandemic levels in 2020-2022. The intensive behavioral health services workforce was slow to recover, despite increased demand for these services during the pandemic. Although the COVID-19 public health emergency expired in May 2023, the pandemic's full impact on the health care workforce and its subsectors remains unclear.

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Document Details

  • Copyright: American Medical Association
  • Publisher: JAMA Network
  • Availability: Non-RAND
  • Year: 2025
  • Pages: 3
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/pubs
  • Document Number: EP-70944

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