The latest Executive Survey Insights report from National the Investment Center (NIC) offered another positive outlook on staffing and occupancy challenges for senior housing providers. Here are some highlights:

• 82% of participating organizations reported ongoing staffing shortages. The last 18 months’ surveys reported 90-99% of providers staffing shortages.
• 77% of the largest providers reported that 25-50% of all their properties are experiencing shortages. The top four predominant reasons for these shortages were: inability to hire nurses (48%), inability to fill nurse aide positions (42%), wage competition (35%), and staff turnover (26%).
• Since April 2023, providers reported a downward trend in the percentage of open, full-time positions. For example, the April ESI reported that 5% of providers had 0-5% of full time positions open, whereas this month’s survey reported that same range to be 20% of providers. Correspondingly, the percentage of providers who have 6-10% of full-time positions open dropped from 55% in April to 40% in July. Also encouragingly, 44% of providers felt that staffing challenges will improve by the end of 2023, and another 15% by the middle of 2024.

For the second month in a row, providers reported that other concerns had risen above staffing challenges, including rising operational costs (72%) as the biggest challenge. However, this was offset by promising improvements in occupancy, where the majority of providers reported that occupancy has returned to pre-pandemic levels for IL (47%), nursing (44%), and memory care (37%). For assisted living, there was an even split between providers whose occupancy has returned to pre-pandemic levels (30%) and those who think occupancy will do so by the end of 2023 (30%.) Overall, the remaining 20-30% of providers felt, across care segments, occupancy would return to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2023.

Providers can participate in the next ESI survey here.

For purposes of this study, NIC defines “seniors housing” as IL/ AL/ Memory Support/Nursing care and is not inclusive of affordable housing providers. Additionally, of the 39 organizations submitting data, 54% for for-profit, 41% not-for-profit, and 5% offer both.