Maine’s nursing workforce has increased during the last few years – thanks to efforts to boost education, recruitment and retention – but more needs to be done to avoid long-term shortages, according to the latest report on the industry here.

The total number of licensed nurses has climbed from 25,235 in 2021 to 27,433 in 2024, an 8.7% jump, according to Cypress Research Group, which conducted the study on behalf of the Maine Nursing Action Coalition.

“There really has been a significant change in the numbers of young nurses in the workforce,” said Pat Cirillo, president of Cypress Research Group. “Maine is doing a fantastic job of graduating nurses and bringing them into the workforce.”

But despite 2,198 more nurses working in Maine now compared to three years ago, there’s still a gap between supply and demand.

Even though there are more licensed nurses, a lower percentage are in the workforce – 83% in 2024 compared to 85% in 2021 – partly because some nurses who retire maintain their licenses for a few years before letting them expire.

The study estimates that there’s currently a shortage of 2,115 nurses in Maine, compared to 2,250 in 2021. But if Maine had not focused on increasing the number of nursing graduates, and other strategies to recruit and retain nurses, the gap would have been about 3,200 by 2025.

Under current conditions, the shortage is expected to grow to 2,817 by 2030.

To make up for the shortage, hospitals have had to pay traveling nurses – who can demand wages of three to four times a staff nurse –and that has threatened the financial stability of hospitals. Northern Light Health, for instance, has had to make a number of cutbacks this year.

Sally Weiss, vice president of workforce policy and strategic initiatives for the Maine Hospital Association, said solving workforce shortages is a “critical mission of Maine’s hospitals.”

Hospital networks, including the two largest in Maine – Northern Light Health and MaineHealth – have partnered with community colleges and universities to help provide training and to set up pipelines so that more nursing graduates stay in Maine rather than getting jobs in other states.

The number of students taking the nurse licensing test for the first time – a good indicator for how many graduates are choosing to stay in Maine — has increased from slightly less than 800 per year in 2016-17, when the initiative to boost Maine’s nursing workforce began, to about 950-980 per year during the past few years.

Still, Cirillo said the number of statewide graduates needs to increase by hundreds more per year to resolve the shortage. Part of the reason for the gap is that even though Maine’s population remains relatively steady at 1.4 million, the number of people 65 and older keeps climbing.

By 2030, the percentage of Maine’s population that is 65 and older will likely have more than doubled since 2010, from 212,000 to 425,000. Older Mainers use more health care and are more likely to need nursing care.

Lisa Harvey-McPherson, a Northern Light registered nurse and co-chair of the Maine Nursing Action Coalition, said for older nurses who still have their licenses, the coalition is working on finding ways to encourage them to come back to work, even if it’s part time. She said older nurses may be more attracted to nursing education jobs or jobs that are less physically demanding.

Harvey-McPherson said they are also looking to further boost the number of nursing graduates by increasing slots at community colleges and universities, and providing incentives to stay in Maine, such as loan forgiveness programs.