Demand for health care services is expected to climb as more baby boomers retire and health care reform makes medical care accessible to more people. As older nurses start retiring, economists predict a massive nursing shortage will reemerge in the United States.
"We've been really worried about the future workforce because we've got almost 900,000 nurses over the age of 50 who will probably retire this decade, and we'll have to replace them," Buerhaus said.
But for recent grads like Soliemannjad, that's not particularly encouraging.
"It just seems that when the experts talk about the economy getting better, they're not talking about it improving in two or three months. They're talking about years," she said. "You have new grads with student loans to pay off. We simply can't not work for another year and half."