Most Australian optometrists want to stay in their profession, but more than one in 10 are unsure about their future or have plans to leave the workforce, some within a year, a new Ahpra-endorsed study has found.
The research, published in the Australian Health Review, identifies the factors driving practitioners’ choices to stay or leave the health workforce, across nine Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra)-regulated health professions.
Despite a regulated workforce of 920,535 health practitioners in 2024, forecasts predict the sector will struggle to meet the demands of Australia’s growing and ageing population in coming years. Although this point is debated to a degree in optometry.
The 2024 survey involved 25,752 health practitioners and analysed 10 years of registration data across the Chinese medicine, chiropractic, dental, medical radiation practice, occupational therapy, optometry, osteopathy, paramedicine, and podiatry professions.
It found that although 79% of respondents intended to maintain their registration, more than 3,000 (12%) were either unsure or intended to leave their profession. The majority (72%) of those intending to leave planned to do so immediately or within the next year.
Optometry’s numbers aligned with overall trends. Of the 1,576 surveyed, 79% said they intended to stay, 5% intended to leave and 6% were unsure of their future.
Osteopathy had the highest rate of practitioners intending to leave (9%) , followed by paramedicine (8%).
The top five reasons for leaving in the next five years among all practitioners were mental burnout (32.9%), retirement (30.5%), lack of recognition/feeling undervalued (28.5%), lack of professional satisfaction (27.9%), and work no longer being fulfilling (25.1%). Across all nine professions, transitioning to another health profession, and teaching and education, were the most popular post-healthcare career paths.
For those who said they were unsure of their future, reasons included potential career change (25.5%), workplace issues (21.2%; such as burnout, stress, unhealthy work culture), considering retirement (19.6%), poor remuneration and/or lack of opportunities for career progression (13.1%), health and family commitments (12.0%; such as injury, caregiving responsibilities), and challenges in maintaining registration with Ahpra (7.8%; such as demonstrating ‘recency of practice’).
Overall, the top five reasons practitioners choose to stay, according to the findings, were enjoying the work, finding fulfilment and meaning in the work, flexibility and work-life balance, the respective health profession being what they trained for and a sense of achievement.
Ms Rachel Phillips, chair of the Psychology Board of Australia and co-convener of the Forum of National Registration and Accreditation Scheme Chairs, said improvements in certain areas could have a major impact on increasing retention in the health workforce and improving the health and wellbeing of practitioners.
“A resilient health workforce is essential to keeping our communities safe, healthy and growing, and the wellbeing of our practitioners goes hand-in-hand with that,” she said.
“These findings highlight the importance of a working environment that is both professionally fulfilling and supportive of practitioner wellbeing – not only for the welfare of our valued practitioners themselves, but also the health needs of the patients they care for.”
Ms Kym Ayscough, Ahpra’s acting CEO at the time of this report, said the research underlined important areas to focus action to strengthen workforce retention into the future.
“The more we understand why people choose to stay or leave their health profession, the better placed the health sector is to address these factors within the workforce.
“This research has identified not only why people are staying or leaving, but who makes up those cohorts, which can be used to inform targeted retention interventions.”
Other findings
According to Ahpra, age, gender, work hours per week, and type of employment were all factors influencing a practitioner’s intentions to stay, leave or be unsure.
Male practitioners were almost twice as likely to intend to leave compared to female practitioners. Practitioners over 60 years were nearly three times more likely to leave and twice as likely to be unsure compared with those aged 35-60 years. They were also twice as likely to leave compared with practitioners under 35 years.
Respondents working less than 20 hours per week were nearly twice as likely to leave or be unsure compared with those working 29–40 hours. Those working more than 50 hours per week were twice as likely to be unsure about staying compared with those working less than 20 hours.
Practitioners who were not self-employed were nearly twice as likely to be unsure about staying in their profession compared with those who were self-employed.
This research has enabled Ahpra to identify specific groups that would benefit from targeted retention strategies and interventions by employers.
“Addressing underlying personal, professional and workplace factors such as mental burnout, lack of recognition, and working conditions may improve retention of Australian health practitioners,” the agency stated.
More reading
New workforce report suggests Australia will need 1,100 more optometrists by 2042
Workforce squeeze: solving the front-of-house optical staffing shortage
Out of sight, out of mind – eye health’s tyranny of distance
