46,000 unfilled positions, around €4.5 billion annually for temporary agency work, and a high attrition rate among international skilled professionals—the healthcare sector in the DACH region is facing one of the greatest workforce challenges in its history.

Existing workforce models are increasingly reaching their limits. Demographic change, rising care needs, and structural bottlenecks in training are causing the gap between demand and available skilled professionals to continue to widen. Short-term solutions such as temporary agency work can cushion acute shortages, but they do not offer a sustainable perspective.

International recruitment alone does not solve the problem either: around one in two international nurses leaves the system again. The reasons are often complex recognition procedures, integration barriers, and a lack of long-term retention strategies.

A look at Scandinavia shows possible alternatives. There, nursing is far more academic—around 35% of nurses have an academic degree, while the share in Germany is about 2%. Higher qualifications, clearer career paths, and better integration of international skilled professionals contribute to more stable workforce systems.

This study analyses why the workforce gap in the DACH region is growing and which strategies actually work—from more efficient recognition procedures and integration programmes to sustainable measures for employee retention.