Factsheet, Nursing and Midwifery 2017

Source: National Health Workforce Data Sets (NHWDS), 2017

Nurses and Midwives

Between 2014 and 2017, the total number of nurses and midwives with general or provisional registration increased by 7.4% from 348,444 to 374,216 (an average annual growth of 2.4%). The number of employed nurses and midwives (‘workforce’) increased 7.7% from 300,077 to 323,122 over the same period. The nursing and midwifery unemployment rate has remained stable at approximately 3.0% of the labour force since 2014.

The following analysis of the nursing and midwifery ‘workforce’ is based on the number of employed nurses and midwives as indicated by the maroon shading in Figure 1 (323,122 in 2017) unless otherwise stated.