I’m sure that if an employer wanted nurses and was willing to pay them $10-20 an hour more than they would earn elsewhere for comparable work, they would have little problem filling their vacancies. This is a shortage of nurses willing to take what employers currently want to pay.
There are many problems within the profession, mostly the range of educational levels that are allowed to call themselves nurses and the lack of increase in salary to correspond to experience. The more education you attain, the farther from the bedside you end up, to be compensated adequately. Many nurses enter the field to be in direct contact with people and see the difference they can make. Without that type of gratification, it can turn into a regular office job, which doesn’t require clinical skills, so why bother going to nursing school? It’s easier to go get an MBA.