At last count from the available figures there were 285,620 nurses in Australia, 230,578 registered nurses and 55,042 enrolled nurses. There are no specific figures for the number working in rural and remote locations however it is estimated that 30% or 82,013 work in these locations. 30% of the Australian nursing workforce was born overseas and about 7.4 percent of them were from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Importantly, overseas trained nurses are considered "valuable assets" within the labour market and are regarded as highly motivated and educated (Hawthorn, 2001, cited in Omeri, 2006, p. 56).

There has been little change over time in the number of males employed in nursing, with males comprising 7.9% of the total national nursing workforce in 2005 (down from 8.4% in 2001).

Patient separations in acute public hospitals have remained relatively stable at 4-5 patient separations per full time equivalent nurse in 2006-2007.

Nurses in Australia continue to turn to part time and casual work in an effort to manage their workloads. In 2005, 49.8% of nurses worked part-time (48.2% of the registered nurse workforce and 56.6% of the enrolled nurse workforce). The average number of hours worked per week however increased slightly from 32.8 hours in 2004 to 33 hours in 2005 (33.3 hours for registerednurses and 31.6 hours for enrolled nurses).