Forecasting imbalances in the global health labor market and devising policy responses

Table 5 Estimated and projected global needs-based and demand-based shortages of health workers, by World Bank income group and WHO region, 2013 and 2030 [shortages are positive, surpluses are negative]

	Needs-based shortages (Need-Supply)		Demand-based shortages (Demand-Supply)
	2013	2030	2013	2030
World Bank Income Group (# of countries)
Low (29)	4 202 379	5 746 161	− 55 173	15 498
Lower-middle (44)	9 003 163	6 495 262	1 029 616	3 723 638
Upper-middle (46)	3 658 626	1 746 981	5 276 413	11 929 697
High (46)	81 361	74 838	305 367	− 167 623
WHO Region (# of countries)
Africa (43)	4 194 741	6 088 186	− 768 647	− 661 859
Americas (28)	708 021	503 870	441 453	2 545 754
Eastern Mediterranean (15)	1 569 814	1 508 924	367 081	1 590 107
Europe (50)	78 394	57 749	1 485 608	1 355 508
South-East Asia (8)	6 661 765	4 547 443	192 068	2 038 195
Western Pacific (21)	3 732 794	1 357 071	4 838 663	8 633 507
World (165)	16 945 529	14 063 242	6 556 224	15 501 211

Sources: [1, 2]
Notes: Health worker refers to physicians, nurses/midwives, and other health workers. For demand-based shortages, positive totals represent shortages while negative totals represent surpluses. The total needs-based shortages reported in this table are lower than the totals reported by the WHO report because this table computes needs-based shortages for 165 countries (to correspond with the demand estimates) whereas the WHO report computed needs-based shortages for 210 countries