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The Nursing Sector in Brazil Is Experiencing an Unemployment Crisis. With an Excess of Graduates, Low Demand, and the Implementation of the Salary Floor, Many Nurses Are Unemployed. Nursing Technicians, With Lower Cost, Fill the Available Positions.
Despite the vital importance of nursing professionals for the functioning of the health system, Brazil faces an alarming scenario in the sector.
A significant number of nurses graduated in recent years are struggling to find job opportunities, and the crisis in the job market is exacerbated by the excess of graduates and the lack of vacancies compatible with the sector’s growing demand.
Recent graduate from the Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Arielle Oliveira shares her personal experience and the plight of many nurses who, like her, face difficulties in entering the job market.
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“The bills keep coming,” says Arielle, who decided to accept a job as a Public Health teacher in a nursing technician course to avoid unemployment, even though it is not the role she had planned for her career.
However, she laments: “I don’t know how it will be from now on, I think that nurses will have to migrate to other areas or start their own businesses because it’s tough in hospitals.”
Arielle’s statement reflects the reality of a saturated market, where vacancies for nurses are scarce and experience is often an unattainable requirement for many recent graduates.
National Situation
The reality experienced by Arielle is, in fact, part of a larger problem. According to research released in September 2024 by the Semesp Institute, approximately 25% of nursing graduates in Brazil are unemployed.
The study reveals that the situation is even more critical among those who completed their degree in the last five years.
The lack of job opportunities for these professionals is a direct reflection of the saturation of nursing courses in the country, which has 1,668 active undergraduate programs, according to data from the Federal Nursing Council (Cofen).
In addition to nursing, other fields of study also face high unemployment rates, such as History, with 31.6% of graduates unemployed, and International Relations, with 29.4%.
However, the contrast is evident in courses like Medicine, where about 92% of graduates manage to find employment in their field, as pointed out by the same study.
An Increasingly Competitive Market
The saturation of qualified professionals is not the only challenge faced by those seeking a job in the nursing field.
Arielle Oliveira describes how the reality within hospitals also plays an important role in this scenario:
“There are nurses who graduated two or three years ago who haven’t managed to find anything. Nursing technicians attend to a large number of patients, the hospital employs more technicians than nurses.”
The explanation for this lies in the distribution of responsibilities within health teams.
Nursing technicians, typically in greater numbers, are responsible for more operational and routine procedures.
Nurses, with more specific responsibilities and a deeper technical knowledge base, end up being hired in smaller numbers, since “in a ward with 30 patients, for example, two nurses are sufficient,” according to Arielle.
Another point raised by specialists is the difficulty in reconciling the establishment of the salary floor for the category with the economic reality of health institutions, both public and private.
The nursing salary floor, regulated in 2022, brought unexpected consequences for professionals, as Telma Cordeiro, president of the Nursing Union of the State of Ceará (Senece), points out:
“Private institutions are not willing to pay this salary floor, which made things much more complicated. When the salary floor was mentioned, institutions increased nurses’ working hours.”
The Impact of the Nursing Salary Floor
Although the national nursing salary was a victory for the category, its implementation brought challenges.
“This salary floor has hindered nurses a lot,” states Telma Cordeiro, referring to the resistance of health institutions to adopt the new regulation.
The union president explains that many employers increased shift hours and pressured professionals to take on multiple roles.
The professor from the Department of Agricultural Economics at UFC, Vitor Hugo Miro, also shares this view, stating that “the establishment of the salary floor may translate into higher costs to hire and maintain these professionals”.
This creates greater competition for job positions as companies seek cheaper alternatives to meet the needs of the sector.
According to the professor, the demand for doctors and nursing technicians continues to grow, while the employability of nurses remains in limbo, pressured by both the excess supply of professionals and the additional costs brought by the salary floor.
Perspectives for the Future
The crisis in the nursing sector is merely a reflection of a broader issue in the Brazilian job market.
Although the demand for health professionals continues to grow, the lack of vacancies for nurses reveals a failure in the balance between education and employability.
The high unemployment rate in the field raises questions about the sustainability of the current supply of nursing courses in Brazil and the need for public policies that can ensure the insertion of these professionals in the job market.
After all, what will the future hold for these professionals who, despite their qualifications, find themselves unemployed? Will the Brazilian health market adjust to this reality, or will nurses have to seek out other areas of work?
Olá, bom dia a todos!
Sou da Bahia. Essa é a realidade da classe. Fiquei desempregada por seis anos, e para não continuar desempregada, tive que fazer cursos na área da educação. Hoje estou ministrado aulas. Mas não perdi a esperança de voltar para área da saúde e exercer minha profissão.