[PGR88]

Fed.gov itself is telling us that job-openings exceed job losses by 11.5 million

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm

Meanwhile US labor participation rate is still at 45 year lows.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

In sum, Americans are choosing not to work. Why aren’t Americans incentivized to become nurses? By what means are non-working Americans supported? And WTF do we need to import more nurses then?

[buckalfa]

'Why aren’t Americans incentivized to become nurses?"

At the hospital where my daughter is a Cardiology APRN, they can attract new grad RN's with bonus and wage packages. They can not retain them given they are actually expected to work.

[semimojo]

In sum, Americans are choosing not to work.

In large part because they're retiring. That curve in the participation rate you posted pretty well matches boomers' work years.

If we want the participation rate to go up we need a higher percentage of pre-retirement people in the population.