Hospitals are struggling for nurses right now because people are leaving the profession entirely or leaving for temporary travel contract positions that pay well. They have been treated poorly, underpaid for the work they do, and inadequately protected this year, and they’re done.

My brother in law said they’re advertising for a position in his normal unit, offering twice his salary. But they won’t offer him extra to stay after risking his life working in the COVID unit for months, so he’s out. It’s absolutely insulting, and so many industries are going to have a major reckoning coming up.

This is happening all over the country. Retail jobs and fast food jobs and other minimum wage low paying jobs are desperately struggling to fill their staff out and unfortunately the government will likely take that as a sign that they need to end unemployment rather than as a sign that they need to raise minimum-wage.