Date of Conferral

4-6-2026

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Benita Stiles-Smith

Abstract

Hospital industry workforce separation has remained a persistent concern in the United States, with uncertainty regarding how national hospital industry separation patterns changed following the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental retrospective study was to examine whether national hospital industry monthly separation rates differed between the prepandemic period (2018–2019) and the postpandemic period (2023–2024), whether separation rates demonstrated a statistically significant linear trend from 2018 through 2024, and whether separation rate variance differed between periods. The conceptual framework for this study was grounded in Maslach’s Burnout Theory and Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Job Satisfaction, which explain how workplace stressors and organizational conditions influence employee burnout, job satisfaction, and workforce retention. Secondary archival data were obtained from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey hospital industry series. A Mann–Whitney U test compared separation rates between periods, simple linear regression assessed temporal trends, and Levene’s test evaluated variance differences. Results indicated a statistically significant difference in monthly separation rates between the prepandemic and postpandemic periods, U = 199.00, Z = −2.58, p = .010. No statistically significant linear trend was observed across the 2018–2024 period, F(1, 82) = 0.38, p = .54, R² = .005, and separation rate variance did not differ significantly between periods, F(1, 46) = 2.25, p = .14. These findings contribute to understanding national hospital industry separation patterns using standardized labor-market data and may inform workforce planning and retention strategies.

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