Gen Z Wants to Stay in Healthcare, But Not Without a Reason to Stick Around

Picture a young nurse, three years into her career, who genuinely wants to stay put. She likes her coworkers. She believes in the mission. But if nobody at her hospital talks to her about where she could go next, that patience has a shelf life. Multiply her by thousands, and you get a portrait of the healthcare workforce right now: a generation that wants roots, but won't wait forever for someone to water them.

That tension shows up starkly in a new survey from The Harris Poll, conducted on behalf of Strategic Education, Inc. and its subsidiary Workforce Edge. Seventy percent of Gen Z healthcare workers say they expect to explore a new role within the next year. Yet 65% also expect to stay with one employer for five years or more, and a striking 95% say long-term job security matters to them. These aren't contradictory findings so much as two sides of the same coin. Young workers aren't restless by nature. They're restless when they don't see a path forward.

The survey drew on responses from 1,514 healthcare employees and 304 employers, gathered between June 12 and July 1, 2025. It was designed to help the industry understand how to retain and rebuild a workforce that's been stretched thin for years, first by pandemic-era burnout, now by chronic staffing shortages that show no signs of easing. Think of it as a checkup on the checkup-givers.

What Gen Z Actually Wants

The data points to something researchers describe as a generational shift in motivation. Gen Z employees appear more driven by career advancement and learning opportunities than workers from earlier generations. Eighty-nine percent say clear advancement opportunities matter to them. Eighty-six percent believe that education and new skills will help them climb the ladder. These aren't vague aspirations. They're specific expectations about what a job should offer beyond a paycheck.

The gap between expectation and reality is where things get uncomfortable. Forty-seven percent of employed respondents point to a lack of advancement, professional development and education as the main reason employees leave their jobs. And despite the clear hunger for growth, only 26% of employees say they have a great deal of trust that their employers will actually support long-term career progression. That's not a small crack in the foundation. That's a quarter of the workforce believing in the promise, and three-quarters doubting the follow-through.

"As a nurse and educator of more than 42 years, these findings confirm what I have seen firsthand," said Adele Webb, a healthcare workforce advisor at Workforce Edge, in a statement. "Younger healthcare workers are willing to move on if their employer doesn't support their career trajectory. Employers must develop a retention strategy that incorporates the learning and advancement opportunities this generation expects."

Employers, for their part, seem to know the stakes. Seventy-eight percent report that retaining Gen Z employees is a high or medium organizational priority, and 75% say the same about recruitment. The awareness is there. Whether the investment matches it is a different question, one the survey's trust numbers suggest hasn't been fully answered yet.

There's also a technology dimension worth sitting with. The survey asked healthcare workers about artificial intelligence, and the responses reveal a workforce that's cautiously optimistic but far from settled. Sixty-six percent believe their jobs are less vulnerable to AI-driven displacement than jobs in other industries, a sense of relative safety rooted in the hands-on, judgment-heavy nature of clinical work. But comfort with the technology itself is more mixed. Fewer than half, just 48%, say they're comfortable using AI tools in their current roles. Thirty-nine percent report that AI has had no noticeable impact on their work at all, suggesting adoption is slower and patchier than headlines about AI in medicine might imply.

What both employees and employers seem to agree on is that human judgment can't be automated away. Seventy-two percent of employees and 78% of employers say human oversight remains essential, even as AI tools become more common in clinical and administrative settings. Webb frames this as a shared value rather than a point of friction. "These results suggest that both employers and employees recognize the value of preserving the human element in healthcare," she said. "While AI remains an important capability and can help streamline work and create efficiencies, the demands of patient care coupled with the need to protect sensitive health data require a more measured approach when it comes to implementing AI tools in clinical settings."

That caution makes sense. Healthcare isn't like other industries where an algorithm can quietly take over a task and nobody notices. Mistakes carry weight measured in human lives, not just lost revenue. A scheduling error from a bad AI tool is an inconvenience. A missed clinical signal is something else entirely. So it tracks that workers and administrators alike want a slower, more deliberate rollout, one where efficiency doesn't come at the cost of safety.

Why It Matters

The staffing shortage haunting American healthcare isn't going away on its own. Hospitals and clinics need workers who stay long enough to build expertise, mentor newcomers, and provide the kind of continuity that patients depend on. Losing Gen Z employees to burnout or stagnation doesn't just create a hiring headache. It erodes the institutional knowledge that keeps care safe and consistent.

The fix, based on what this survey suggests, isn't complicated in concept, even if it's hard in practice. Workers want to see a future for themselves inside the organizations they already work for. Give them a visible path, real education, real chances to grow, and many will stay for the long haul they say they want. Withhold that, and the exodus threatened by that 70% figure becomes less a possibility and more a certainty. For an industry already stretched thin, that's a risk it can't afford to ignore.