Report: More women in Utah leaving health care industry

A report attributes the increase in women leaving the industry to child care duties and the stress of working with critically-ill patients and seeing death more frequently during the pandemic. Photo: Rusty Watson

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah. — A newly released report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has shown more women in the health care industry are leaving the profession due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Women lost more than 1.5 million health care jobs across the nation in April 2020, about 12% of all health care jobs held by women, KSTU-TV reported.

About 90% of the nursing workforce in Utah is made up of women, agency officials said. During the second quarter of 2020, turnover for nurses in the state reached a record high of more than 3,100 jobs or more than 33% more than the previous year.

The report attributes the increase in women leaving the industry to child care duties and the stress of working with critically ill patients and seeing death more frequently during the pandemic.

“There’s quite a bit of collateral damage that was done as a result of the pandemic, but a lot of the environmental and personal stress issues were there, to begin with. They just simply got exacerbated,” Utah Nurses Association Executive Director Dr. Liz Close said.

Close met with members of the Nurses Foundation last week and said the group recommends that companies institute different programs to address the health and well-being of nurses and improve access to child care.