The Bloomberg Editorial board proposes the U.S. should address a nursing shortage[1] by importing more nurses – potentially hundreds of thousands – from other countries. (See Immigration Can Help Solve the Nursing Shortage – Bloomberg)

Bloomberg believes the U.S. should take nurses from other countries, which would then have fewer nurses available there. Is that ethical?

Everyone in finance/economics/business believes we should address labor shortages via more immigration. There are now dozens of countries with very low fertility rates that say they will address labor demand by importing workers from elsewhere. However, 75% of the world’s population today lives in countries with declining populations. There will not be sufficient workers willing to relocate for every country to use imported labor as a solution. The effect is the U.S. will be “stealing” health care workers from other countries that also need health care workers.

[1] In economics, a labor shortage means you cannot hire what you want at the price you are willing to pay. If there is a shortage of nurses in the U.S., this might reflect on pay or working conditions being non-competitive with other alternatives for workers. Note – my wife is formerly a biochemist/RN and one of my adult daughters is a nurse practitioner.

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