DRAPER, Utah, Oct. 13, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — BambooHR®, the leading People Intelligence Platform for small and mid-sized businesses, today released a new healthcare workforce report, Healthcare’s Flatlining Workforce and the Rise of Zombie Burnout, which found that involuntary terminations made up 34% of all healthcare turnover from January through August 2026, up from 32.9% over the same months in 2025. Over the same period, resignations fell to 55.9% of healthcare departures, down from 63.8% in 2022, even though two-thirds of healthcare workers surveyed (65%) report burnout, compassion fatigue, moral distress, or secondary traumatic stress.

The report draws on anonymized BambooHR platform data from more than 15,000 healthcare organizations, including hospitals, physician clinics, and mental health and rehabilitation facilities, along with an analysis of more than 200,000 healthcare job postings and a survey of healthcare workers and leaders. Together, the findings give healthcare leaders a view of their industry that no single organization’s data could show on its own.

Healthcare workers are burned out, but fewer are resigning
BambooHR’s report describes “zombie burnout” as a state in which healthcare workers’ energy and morale are depleted, but they keep showing up to work anyway. Burnout remains a top concern: 55% of healthcare leaders surveyed say staff burnout is the most pressing challenge at their organization. Yet the share of healthcare departures that were resignations has declined every year since 2022, which challenges the common assumption that burnout is driving healthcare workers to quit.

“Fewer resignations don’t necessarily mean healthcare workers are doing well,” said Nicole Csiszar, Senior Director of HR Services at BambooHR. “With more departures now coming from the employer side, staying put can feel like the safest choice, even for someone who’s running on empty. That won’t show up in a turnover report, and a check-in only works if people feel safe telling the truth.”

Healthcare firings are rising, but the data doesn’t point to AI
Among healthcare workers who left their jobs, the share who were let go rose from 26.8% in 2022 to 34% in 2026, and administrative and billing roles have seen the sharpest increase. However, BambooHR’s analysis of more than 200,000 healthcare job postings did not find evidence that AI is replacing those roles. Administrative and billing positions held flat as a share of healthcare hiring from 2019 to 2025, and almost none of those postings mentioned AI or automation.

The report finds the rise more consistent with financial pressure:

  • Administrative and billing roles: 33.4% of administrative and billing departures in 2026 were involuntary, compared with 30.2% for clinical roles, a gap of two to three points that has held every year since 2023.
  • Cost pressure: 94% of healthcare leaders surveyed say inflation has meaningfully impacted their organization, and 43% say they are absorbing those costs entirely rather than passing them on to patients.


Healthcare employers are competing for clinical talent with flexibility
Healthcare hiring has slowed every year since 2022, but demand for clinical workers has not, and more of the jobs on offer to people entering the field are flexible ones. Between 2019 and 2025:

  • Clinical demand grew: Nurse practitioner roles more than tripled as a share of healthcare job postings, and registered nurse roles rose 63%.
  • Flexible roles expanded: PRN and per-diem roles each more than doubled as a share of healthcare postings.
  • Flexibility became the pitch: Work-life balance mentions in healthcare job descriptions rose more than fivefold, and employee assistance program (EAP) mentions rose more than fourfold.

Additionally, keeping new hires is proving harder than attracting them. More than one in three healthcare workers hired in 2025 (35.9%) left within their first year, and those who received a title change in their first year were nearly twice as likely to leave in year two as those who did not (32.9% vs. 17.6%).

The full report, Healthcare’s Flatlining Workforce and the Rise of Zombie Burnout, is available here: https://www.bamboohr.com/resources/data-at-work/data-stories/healthcare-2026.

Methodology
All proprietary source data is derived from the BambooHR platform, covering approximately September 2022 through August 2026. Some findings, including first-year turnover, title-change, and the job postings analysis, draw on data that extends further back than that window. The analysis is based on aggregated and anonymized data from BambooHR customers, drawing from a dataset that includes millions of employee records and workforce events across organizations globally. To enable comparison across organizations of different sizes, the report uses normalized metrics including hiring and turnover proportions (hires or terminations relative to total employees). The report also analyzes more than 200,000 healthcare job postings on the BambooHR platform from 2019 through 2025, with results reported as shares of annual healthcare postings.

All survey source data is derived from a study BambooHR conducted using an online survey prepared by Method Research and distributed by RepData among n=1,248 adults age 18 and older. The research was split between two audiences who each saw a unique set of questions: n=926 full-time salaried employees in the US who are desk, frontline, or hybrid workers, including a subgroup of at least n=150 each from the construction, technology, education, healthcare, finance, and food and beverage industries; and n=322 adults in the US who are business owners or C-suite leaders at small or mid-sized organizations, including a subgroup of at least n=50 each from the same industries. Survey data was collected from March 24 to April 9, 2026.

About BambooHR
BambooHR is a People Intelligence Platform that helps small and mid-sized businesses bring clarity to their workforce and act with confidence. As AI reshapes roles, workflows, and skill requirements, BambooHR enables organizations to understand what matters most and what to do next by unifying their people data into a complete, connected view. The platform brings together core HR, payroll, benefits administration, and talent management with embedded AI, insights, and workflows to simplify people operations and improve decision-making. With more than 30,000 customers in over 190 countries and over 3 million employee records, BambooHR helps leaders align their people, drive growth, increase efficiency, and stay compliant.

For more information, visit www.bamboohr.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Healthcare’s Flatlining Workforce and the Rise of Zombie Burnout report?
Healthcare’s Flatlining Workforce and the Rise of Zombie Burnout is a BambooHR workforce report on the state of the healthcare workforce, built from anonymized BambooHR platform data, more than 200,000 healthcare job postings, and a survey of healthcare workers and leaders. Its headline finding is that involuntary terminations made up 34% of healthcare turnover from January through August 2026, while resignations fell to 55.9% of departures.

What is zombie burnout?
Zombie burnout, as BambooHR’s healthcare report uses the term, describes a state in which workers’ energy and morale are depleted but they keep working anyway. BambooHR found signs of it in healthcare, where 65% of workers surveyed report burnout or related distress even as resignations have shrunk as a share of departures every year since 2022.

Does promoting healthcare workers early improve retention?
BambooHR’s data suggests it does not on its own. Healthcare workers with one title change in their first year left in year two at a rate of 32.9%, compared with 17.6% for those with no title change, a pattern the report treats as a marker of departure risk rather than proof of cause.

Are healthcare jobs becoming more flexible?
Yes. According to BambooHR’s analysis of healthcare job postings, PRN and per-diem roles each more than doubled as a share of healthcare postings between 2019 and 2025, and work-life balance mentions in job descriptions rose more than fivefold.


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bamboohr@methodcommunications.com

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