VHA Sets Hiring Records in 2023
NAVAPD has been instrumental in fighting for VA to recruit, hire, and retain additional physicians and dentists. We have also fought to increase physician and dentist pay, improve market pay, remove pay disparities, and we have asked Congress to appropriate additional funding for physicians in severe shortage specialty areas, as well as to remove the $400,000 salary cap on specific hard to recruit specialties.
You can see a summary of some of the recent efforts NAVAPD President Abate and the board has made here.
NAVAPD will continue to fight for our membership, and we will continue to bring staffing shortages and pay disparities to those in Congress who can correct these problems, so that VA can continue to recruit and retain a highly qualified and highly competitive physician and dentist workforce.
MESSAGE FROM THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR HEALTH
October 27, 2023
VHA Sets Hiring Records in FY 2023
Last year I introduced Hiring Faster and More Competitively as one of the six VA Health Care Priorities because it takes an undivided, engaged and robust workforce to deliver superior care to our nation’s Veterans.
This systemwide prioritization of hiring enabled a record-setting year for our workforce:
We hired 61,239 new external employees this year, which surpasses our previous all-time record from a year ago by 24%. This also exceeds our FY 2023 goal of 52,000 new hires by 18%.
We hired 34,523 new external employees within our “big-7” clinical and nonclinical occupations where we see some of our greatest challenges, including physicians, nurses, licensed practical nurses, nursing assistants, medical support assistants, housekeeping aides and food service workers.
We have grown our workforce by 7.4% (+28,233 employees), the largest increase in over 15 years. This exceeds our FY 2023 goal of 3% workforce growth by nearly 150%.
We have improved employee retention to pre-COVID rates, with a 7.8% loss rate well below the average of 9.8% and last year’s 11.0% loss rate.
Hiring is a team sport, and it takes all of us to recruit and retain the top talent necessary to build Veteran trust in the care we deliver. Our latest PACT Act performance dashboard shows that we are bringing more Veterans into our health care system and that Veteran trust in VA care is also rising.
We can all take pride in our record-breaking hiring accomplishments in FY 2023. Thank you for your continued dedication to our Veterans and our mission.
Shereef Elnahal, MD, MBA
Under Secretary for Health