Employers across Southwest and Southside Virginia are seeking to hire more than 5,000 registered nurses and thousands of other healthcare professionals, according to a new report.
The George Mason University Center for Health Workforce has released the first in a planned series of quarterly reports detailing Virginia’s healthcare workforce needs.
The reports break down healthcare job advertisements across the state’s nine GO Virginia regions, offering a snapshot of the positions employers are seeking to fill.
The Center for Health Workforce is funded, in part, by Claude Moore Opportunities, a nonprofit organization launched in 2024 to address Virginia’s health workforce needs by creating career pathways. Those pathways often start in the K-12 system, where the organization works to introduce students to health careers in their own communities.
Publicly available workforce data can help education and workforce leaders decide where to direct training and other resources, said Dr. Bill Hazel, CEO of Claude Moore Opportunities and former Virginia secretary of health and human resources.
“So much of the funding that goes into education and training is really public money. In fact, it’s in the K-12 system, the community colleges, the four-year colleges, and so on. The question is, well, where do we focus? How do we decide where to invest?” Hazel said during an interview last week.
The quarterly reports track the number of healthcare-related positions advertised in each region at a given time. The first report, released Sept. 10, took a snapshot of the job openings in the first week of the month.
The data is organized according to the GO Virginia regions. GO Virginia, or the Virginia Initiative for Growth and Opportunity, is a statewide economic development initiative that divides Virginia into nine regions. Local business, education and government leaders work within each region to promote higher-paying and more diverse jobs.
The demand for nurses in Southwest and Southside Virginia is particularly pronounced. Employers in those regions advertised more than 5,000 unique registered nurse positions.
Making that information publicly available can show Virginians that workforce opportunities exist close to home, Hazel said. It also gives education and legislative leaders information they can use to determine where and how to provide education and training.
The data could also help introduce people to healthcare careers they might not otherwise consider, Hazel said.
For example, social and human service assistants were the second-most advertised healthcare position in regions 1 and 2, according to the report.
These workers provide administrative support services to social workers. That work plays an important role in healthcare because social workers and their assistants can help patients address nonmedical factors that affect their health, Hazel said. They can also connect people with services such as Medicaid.
“Most people probably aren’t thinking, ‘Gee I could be a lab tech for a hospital’ unless their mother was,” Hazel said. “And most people don’t understand that you could be an X-ray assistant or a limited X-ray tech, then become a fully certified X-ray tech, and then be an ultrasound or a CT or an MRI tech, which is really a good-paying job.”
Across regions 1, 2 and 3, the most frequently advertised healthcare jobs were similar: registered nurses, nursing assistants, licensed practical and vocational nurses, and social and human service assistants.
Nursing assistants provide basic bedside care and help patients with activities of daily living. They may also transport patients or provide wound care, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median annual pay for nursing assistants was about $42,000 in 2025.
Licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses provide basic nursing care under the supervision of registered nurses and physicians. Their median pay was $64,400 a year in 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Region 2, which includes 13 counties stretching from Appomattox to Giles and from Franklin to Alleghany, has a notable demand for radiologic technologists and technicians. These workers use imaging equipment, including X-ray, CT and MRI machines, to create diagnostic images of the body. Their median annual pay was $81,390 in 2025.
In Region 3, which includes counties along the North Carolina border from Patrick to Brunswick and north to Buckingham and Cumberland, physical therapists were the second-most frequently advertised healthcare position.
Becoming a physical therapist requires a doctoral degree, but the profession also offers relatively high pay. The median annual wage was $102,760 last year.
Region 3 also had significant demand for occupational therapy assistants, who help patients develop or regain skills needed for daily activities under the supervision of occupational therapists. The median annual wage for occupational therapy assistants was about $70,000 per year in 2025.
The data shows where employers are advertising jobs but not necessarily exactly how many positions are vacant. The data also shows where the jobs are but not whether employers are retaining workers.
Workforce challenges extend beyond recruitment, Hazel said. Healthcare organizations also need to retain the workers they already have.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted many of the pressures facing the healthcare workforce, but Hazel said management also plays an important role in whether workers stay.
At a recent conference, Hazel said he heard a speaker identify management training as one of the biggest challenges facing the workforce for rural nursing homes.
“People who have good managers tend to stay,” Hazel said.
These quarterly reports are intended to provide a recurring look at how those workforce needs change over time but do not necessarily show trends such as retention.
