Fact-checked against primary sources: the Korean Nurses Association, the Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union, and Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) data. Last verified August 2026.

Korea licenses roughly 550,000 nurses. Only about 298,554, under 60% — actually work in a hospital or clinic. That gap alone would be a striking statistic anywhere, but the more alarming number sits inside it: among nurses who leave the field and later come back, 52.7% quit again.

Korea’s nursing crisis isn’t a training or licensing problem, the country produces tens of thousands of newly licensed nurses every year,  it’s a retention failure so severe that even bringing experienced nurses back doesn’t fix it.

A 45,062-person union survey published in May 2026 found 72.1% of currently employed nurses had considered quitting within just the past three months, and the reason nurses give isn’t pay, it’s working conditions, cited nearly twice as often as wages.

Below are the 20 nurse retention statistics for South Korea that matter most in 2026, sourced directly from the Korean Nurses Association, the Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union, and HIRA data.

Nurse Retention Statistics South Korea at a Glance

  1. 72.1% — nurses who considered changing jobs within the past three months, 2026 union survey of 29,275 nurses

  2. 59.7% — share of licensed nurses actually working in a medical institution, as of 2025 (Korean Nurses Association / HIRA)

  3. 52.7% — share of nurses who quit again after returning to the field following a prior resignation

  4. 55.7% — repeat-resignation rate specifically at tertiary hospitals, Korea’s highest-paying institutions

  5. 250,000 — “dormant license” nurses in Korea: credentialed but not currently working

  6. 143-fold — the gap in active-nurse density between Korea’s highest- and lowest-staffed regions

  7. 80% — attrition rate among visiting (home health) nurses

  8. 60% — attrition rate at nursing homes

  9. 48.9% — nurses citing working conditions as their top reason for considering a job change, nearly double the 25.2% who cited wages

  10. 9 to 10 — patients per nurse in Korean tertiary hospitals, versus a legal cap of 4 to 7 in the U.S. and Australia

Nurse Retention Statistics South Korea: The Scale of the Turnover Problem

  1. A 2026 survey of 45,062 healthcare workers, including 29,275 nurses, found 72.1% of nurses had considered changing jobs within the past three months — 7.5 percentage points higher than the 64.6% rate among all healthcare workers surveyed, confirming nursing carries elevated turnover risk even within an already-strained healthcare workforce.

  2. Turnover consideration peaks among nurses with three to five years of experience, at 79.9% — precisely the cohort hospitals have already invested the most in training and who represent the highest-value retention target, not new hires or long-tenured veterans.

  3. Three-shift nurses report the highest turnover consideration at 75.2%, and among three-shift nurses with three to five years of tenure specifically, the rate climbs to 81.4% — schedule structure and experience level compound each other’s effect on turnover risk.

  4. Only 1.5% of nurses cited the nature of nursing work itself as a reason for considering a job change — the overwhelming majority of dissatisfaction traces to conditions and compensation, not to disliking the profession, which reframes retention as a fixable systems problem rather than a vocational mismatch.

Nurse Retention Statistics South Korea: The Licensed-but-Inactive Workforce

  1. Approximately 550,000 people held nursing licenses in Korea as of 2025, but only about 298,554 — roughly 54–59.7% — were actively working in medical institutions, according to the Korean Nurses Association’s analysis of HIRA’s National Nurse Status report. [web:217]

  2. That leaves nearly 250,000 “dormant license” nurses — individuals who obtained nursing credentials but are not currently working in the field, a workforce reserve larger than the entire active nursing headcount of many mid-sized countries.

  3. From March 2023 to March 2025, Korea licensed 95,778 new nurses, but the active nursing workforce grew by only 48,880 — meaning barely half of newly licensed nurses over that two-year window actually entered or stayed in clinical practice.

  4. More than 200,000 licensed nurses — about 40% of all license holders — were not working in clinical settings as of 2024, according to the Korean Nurses Association’s own president, who explicitly frames this as a structural outflow problem, not a supply problem.

Nurse Retention Statistics South Korea: Regional Concentration

  1. Active nurse density varies by up to 143-fold across Korean regions, ranging from as few as 0.33 active nurses per 1,000 population in the lowest-served areas to as many as 47.11 in the highest, according to HIRA’s National Nurse Status data.

  2. The national average sits at 5.84 active nurses per 1,000 population — a figure that masks the enormous regional disparity, since a handful of major metropolitan hospitals concentrate active nurses while many districts fall far below the national mean.

  3. The Korean Nurses Association has specifically called for a “regional nurse system” in response to this disparity, arguing that national aggregate figures obscure a distribution crisis at least as severe as the overall retention problem.

Nurse Retention Statistics South Korea: Why Nurses Say They’re Leaving

  1. Working conditions are the top cited reason for considering a job change, at 48.9%, nearly double the 25.2% who cited wages — directly contradicting the assumption that pay is the primary lever for Korean nurse retention.

  2. In a separate satisfaction survey, dissatisfaction with staffing levels was the single highest-rated complaint at 72.2%, ahead of workload and labor intensity (60.7%) and wages (58.4%) — three related but statistically distinct workplace-conditions complaints all outranking pay.

  3. 70.3% of nurses said their current department was understaffed, and in Korean tertiary hospitals, each nurse is typically responsible for 9 to 10 patients — compared with a legally capped ratio of 4 to 7 patients per nurse in the United States and Australia.

  4. 62.3% of nurses reported experiencing verbal abuse at work from patients, guardians, or doctors over the past year, and 65.5% reported regularly skipping meals during shifts — rising to 80.5% among three-shift nurses specifically — both concrete, measurable indicators of the working-condition strain nurses cite as their top turnover driver.

  5. Tertiary hospitals — Korea’s highest-paying institutions — report the highest repeat-resignation rate among returning nurses, at 55.7%, directly undercutting a compensation-first explanation for turnover: if pay alone drove retention, the best-paying hospitals should show the lowest repeat-resignation rates, not the highest.

Nurse Retention Statistics South Korea: Setting-Specific Attrition

  1. Community and home-based nursing shows the most extreme attrition of any setting measured: approximately 80% of visiting (home health) nurses leave their positions, and nursing homes report attrition rates around 60%.

  2. Visiting nurses commonly cite low reimbursement rates, irregular schedules, and isolated working conditions — often managing high-risk patients alone across multiple locations daily without adequate backup or institutional support, a distinct risk profile from hospital-based nursing.

Nurse Retention Statistics South Korea: The Aging-Population Pressure

  1. Korea entered “super-aged society” status as of late 2024, with more than 20% of its population aged 65 or older — a demographic milestone that intensifies demand for exactly the nursing capacity the retention crisis is depleting, layering a demand-side pressure on top of the existing supply-side outflow problem.

  2. The Korean Nurses Association’s own leadership has explicitly reframed the national policy question, arguing that continuing to recruit and license new nurses without fixing retention is “akin to pouring water into a leaking bucket,” and that the central question must shift from “how to recruit more nurses” to “why nurses are compelled to leave.”

Why Nurse Retention Statistics in South Korea Point One Direction

Unlike several countries in this series, Korea’s retention data doesn’t fracture across competing methodologies — multiple independent measurements converge on the same structural diagnosis:

  • License-to-active-workforce data (HIRA, Korean Nurses Association) shows the participation gap: only 54–59.7% of licensed nurses are working.

  • Turnover-intention survey data (Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union, 45,062 respondents) shows the active workforce’s own near-term flight risk: 72.1% considered quitting in the past three months.

  • Repeat-resignation data (Korean Nurses Association analysis) shows retention fails even after successful re-recruitment: 52.7% of returning nurses quit again.

All three independent data streams point to the same conclusion: this is not a pipeline problem. Korea trains and licenses enough nurses; it cannot keep them working, and cannot keep them working even on a second attempt.

What the Evidence Says Would Help

  • Codify a legal patient-to-nurse ratio. The Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union has explicitly called for this, and the Korean Nurses Association’s own analysis points to Korea’s 9-to-10-patient tertiary hospital ratio, against a 4-to-7 legal cap in the U.S. and Australia, as a root driver rather than a side effect of turnover.

  • Prioritize retention for the three-to-five-year experience cohort specifically. This group shows both the highest turnover consideration (79.9%) and the most value already invested in their training — a natural first target for stay interviews, career-ladder incentives, and schedule flexibility.

  • Redesign compensation and support structures for community and home-based nursing separately from hospital nursing. An 80% attrition rate among visiting nurses reflects a distinct set of problems (isolation, low reimbursement, irregular scheduling) that a hospital-focused retention program won’t reach.

  • Address verbal abuse and meal-skipping as measurable, trackable conditions metrics, not just cultural complaints — both are concrete, quantifiable indicators tied directly to the “working conditions” factor nurses cite twice as often as pay. [web:215]

  • Build a formal mechanism for reactivating dormant licenses that addresses why the first and second returns both failed, rather than treating the 250,000 dormant-license pool as a simple recruitment target — the 52.7% repeat-resignation rate shows that recruitment alone, without conditions reform, doesn’t solve retention even for nurses who already chose to come back once.

Burnout, verbal abuse exposure, and chronic understaffing are documented, measurable conditions in the Korean nursing workforce, not abstract concerns — 62.3% of nurses reported abuse exposure and 70.3% reported understaffing in their own department in the same 2026 survey. [web:215] Employer-led staffing reform, legally mandated patient-ratio limits, and licensed clinical mental health support remain the primary tools for addressing this. Some facilities may also explore complementary, non-clinical wellbeing resources to supplement licensed care — remote sessions such as Ne Ste Al Mind Reprogramming, for example, as one additional layer alongside employer-provided support, not instead of it. Ne Ste Al does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical or psychiatric condition, and individual results vary; nurses experiencing burnout or clinical symptoms should consult a licensed healthcare provider first.

Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage of Korean nurses want to quit their jobs?

A 2026 survey of 29,275 nurses found 72.1% had considered changing jobs within the past three months, rising to 79.9% among nurses with three to five years of experience and 81.4% among three-shift nurses in that same experience band.

Why don’t more licensed nurses in Korea actually work as nurses?

Only about 54–59.7% of Korea’s roughly 550,000 licensed nurses are actively working in medical institutions, leaving nearly 250,000 “dormant license” nurses. The Korean Nurses Association attributes this primarily to working conditions rather than a lack of trained personnel.

Is pay the main reason Korean nurses leave their jobs?

No, according to the nurses themselves. Working conditions were cited by 48.9% of nurses as their top reason for considering a job change, nearly double the 25.2% who cited wages. Tertiary hospitals, which offer some of the highest pay in the industry, actually report the highest repeat-resignation rate among returning nurses (55.7%).

Do nurses who leave and come back to the profession stay this time?

Often not. 52.7% of nurses who return to clinical work after a prior resignation quit again, according to Korean Nurses Association analysis — evidence of a structural failure to retain experienced staff even after successful re-recruitment.

Which nursing roles or settings have the worst retention in Korea?

Community-based roles show the most severe attrition: about 80% of visiting (home health) nurses leave their positions, and nursing homes report roughly 60% attrition — both substantially higher than hospital-based nursing turnover figures.

How does Korea’s nurse-to-patient ratio compare internationally?

Korean tertiary hospital nurses are typically responsible for 9 to 10 patients each, and general hospital ratios often exceed 30 patients per nurse. By comparison, the United States and Australia legally cap nurse-to-patient ratios at 4 to 7 patients. [web:222]

Related

Nurse Retention Statistics UAE 2026
Nurse Retention Statistics Saudi Arabia 2026
Nurse Shortage Statistics Poland 2026

Sources

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