Healthcare Staffing in 2026 Shows Signs of Recovery—But Pressures Persist 

As the U.S. healthcare staffing industry looks ahead to 2026, leaders are navigating a market that has both transformed and continues to evolve. The pandemic period saw a surge in temporary healthcare labor spending, peaking in 2022, followed by steep declines from 2023 through 2024. 

Staffing Industry Analysts’ (SIA) US Staffing Industry Forecast: September 2025 found that the overall healthcare staffing market is expected to return to slight growth in 2026 (2%), reaching $40.2 billion. Reduced demand and normalized bill rates have been the primary reasons for performance lag, particularly in travel nursing. Although some segments continue to expand, such as locum tenens’ projected 4% growth in 2026. 

The overall outlook for 2026 is one of cautious improvement, with total spending inching upward after a period of contraction. A data deep-dive illuminates the cause for cautious optimism. 

Healthcare Staffing Segment Analysis

Analysis of SIA’s US Staffing Industry Forecast data revealed particularly fascinating insights for each healthcare staffing segment.

• Travel Nursing appears to have bottomed out in 2025, after a 36% revenue drop in 2024. Under intense pressure to cut costs, hospitals responded by reducing reliance on travel nurses, decreasing bill rates, and shortening assignment lengths. The segment is projected to stabilize in 2026 with a modest 1% uptick signaling stabilization rather than a return to rapid growth.

• International Nursing, which involves recruiting foreign-trained nurses (often on visa programs), has doubled in size since 2019. This segment is projected to grow by 4% in 2026 — constrained more by supply than demand — though visa processing bottlenecks and immigration limits restrict how fast this segment can grow.

• Per Diem Nursing is gaining momentum as hospitals seek flexible, lower-cost staffing options. Spending should improve slightly in 2026 (2% growth), reflecting cautious re-expansion of flexible shift coverage.

• Locum Tenens is the standout segment, showing consistent growth with a projected 4% increase in 2026. This is driven by physician shortages, demand for revenue-generating service lines, and greater use of advanced practice providers (APPs). The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) expects APP employment to grow well above the national average through 2034. BLS projections show nurse practitioners growing by 40.9% and physician assistants growing by 22.7% over the next decade.

• Allied Health is poised for modest growth after a 20% decline in the market during 2024. This segment is projected to grow 1% in 2026 as elective procedures and outpatient volumes continue to recover. High-acuity, technically specialized roles such as diagnostic imaging, surgical services, and respiratory care are driving growth in this segment.

Labor Market Realities: Demand Outstrips Supply

Despite market normalization, clinician shortages remain severe. The BLS projects over 189,000 annual registered nurse openings between 2024-2034. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a physician shortfall of up to 86,000 by 2036. These constraints maintain structural demand for contingent labor. Yet the clinician pipeline remains restricted by education capacity limits and persistent faculty shortages, preventing meaningful growth in supply.

At the same time, employment is accelerating outside the hospital setting. Outpatient, home health, behavioral health, and other lower-acuity environments are driving much of the sector’s expansion. As clinicians increasingly gravitate toward these settings for better balance and working conditions, staffing firms are diversifying accordingly. This includes aligning their offerings with where both demand and worker preferences are moving as well as positioning themselves for long-term, sustainable growth.

Accelerated Technology and Platform Disruption

AI-enabled staffing technologies are increasingly automating high-volume, rule-based processes across the staffing lifecycle. In the front office, SIA’s Global Staffing Front Office Software Landscape Update 2025 found that vendors are deploying AI within search and match, parsing, and credential management workflows. This occurs particularly in healthcare, where demand for automated credentialing and license-tracking has accelerated significantly. These enhancements reflect broader adoption of intelligent scoring, availability prediction, and chatbot-driven engagement across candidate sourcing and onboarding.

At the same time, the rise of Staffing Platforms as a Service (SPaaS) is enabling staffing firms to deliver more digital, self-service, and gig-style engagement models. SPaaS solutions provide mobile, on-demand access for clinicians and other temporary workers. This supports shift discovery, self-selection, credential upload, time capture, and communication without heavy recruiter mediation. These platforms are seeing strong adoption in healthcare — especially per diem and travel nursing — due to the need for rapid fulfillment, complex scheduling, and around-the-clock demand patterns.

Financial Pressures and Consolidation

Margins remain tight. The 2025 SIA NATHO Travel Nurse Benchmarking Survey found that travel nursing gross margins fell from 20.6% in aggregate in 2023 to 19.3% in 2024, with housing and insurance costs offsetting rate declines. 

Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) pressures are driving firms toward efficiency, scale, and technology investment. Consolidation continues as large firms expand their technology capabilities and integrate managed service provider (MSP) and vendor management system (VMS) solutions.

Positioning for 2026 and Beyond

The path to 2026 is one of transformation, not return. Market stabilization, persistent labor shortages, shifting clinician preferences, and accelerating technology adoption are redefining healthcare staffing. 

Staffing firms that embrace digital models, diversify across care settings, and position themselves as long-term workforce partners will be best positioned to lead the next phase of growth.