The 78th World Health Assembly approved a resolution aimed at accelerating action on the global health and care workforce. The resolution requests the WHO Director-General to prioritize resources to support policy development and implementation of the health and care workforce priorities outlined in the Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030. This includes fostering regional and global collaboration, and supporting member states to manage and develop their health and care workforce.

Member States also approved two decisions: one on the renewal of Strategic Directions for Nursing and Midwifery and another on the Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel. Regions will take up discussion on how to strengthen the code, based on an expert advisory group’s assessment, and their suggestions will be tabled at next year’s Assembly.

They considered, within the consolidated report of the Director General, reporting on the Code, which includes reporting by a record 105 countries and the findings and interim recommendations of the Third Expert Advisory Group and on the Global Strategy report. The latter summarizes progress towards the four objectives of the WHO Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030 and incorporates progress in implementing five additional health workforce resolutions, one decision and the activities undertaken by WHO through the WHO, ILO and OECD Working for Health programme.

Key figures

The estimated stock of health workers now exceeds 70 million. Shortage estimates decreased steadily since the Global Strategy adoption in 2026, trends that may be linked to investment decisions, the adoption of evidence-based policies and improved data availability.

The pace of progress has slowed, however, and masks diverging trends across and within regions, prompting an upward adjustment to the projected workforce shortage by 2030 to 11 million (compared to the 2022 estimate of a projected 10 million shortage by 2030).

Women comprise 67% of the global health workforce.

The 2025 decisions by members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee to freeze or cut official development assistance has created a significant disruption in the global aid ecosystem and national political agendas of low- and-middle income countries . This situation has had immediate consequences for the availability of critical health services, commodities and health and care workers across countries.

A March 2025 WHO rapid assessment found that over half (63%) of WHO country offices reported job-related effects on health and care workers in countries. Budget cuts are expected to reduce countries’ ability to absorb new health and care workers, worsening existing shortages. With reduced absorptive capacity, health systems in Africa are projected to see an increase in the health and care workforce shortage of 600,000 health and care workers by 2030, compared to earlier estimates. Learn more in this blog from our panel of economists.

Who are health and care workers? 

• Health worker - Health workers are all people primarily engaged in actions with the primary intent of enhancing health. For health workers, the relevant ISCO codes are generally found within the "Health Professionals" (Sub-Major Group 22) and "Health Associate Professionals" (Minor Group 325) categories, with more specific unit groups depending on the type of health work. 
• Heath care assistant (ISCO-08 code: 5321) - Institution-based personal care workers who provide direct personal care and assistance with activities of daily living to patients and residents in a variety of health care settings such as hospitals, clinics and residential nursing care facilities. They generally work in implementation of established care plans and practices, and under the direct supervision of medical, nursing or other health professionals or associate professionals.
• Home-based personal care workers (ISCO-08 code: 5322) who provide routine personal care and assistance with activities of daily living to persons who are in need of such care due to effects of ageing, illness, injury, or other physical or mental conditions, in private homes and other independent residential settings. 

• EB156/CONF/.14 Proposed resolution: Accelerating action on the global health and care workforce by 2030
• EB156/15 Report on the WHO Global Code of Conduct on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel
• EB156/14 Report on the Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health
• EB156/34 Global strategic directions for nursing and midwifery 2021–2025