It's easy on the body, compared to similar paid blue collar jobs, like union construction. And it seems better than office work.
Durning the AIDS crisis a lot of nurses--who could quit did. They quit because many were legitmetly scared.
Hospitals got worried, and told their marketing departments to throw out the word, "We need nurses!". Most smaller hospitals had a hard time keeping qualified egos (The Medical Doctor), and they couldn't be bothered besides doing just the bare minimum.
Let's not forget their are many classifications of nurses (RN, LVN, etc., and porely trained Candy Stripers, or cheap help, hospitals (especially union controlled) use instead of nurses. Some are not porely trained though, but nursing unions don't like competition. I'm not berating unions. Moneynot spent on help seems to go to administrators anyway.)
(I went to school with nursing students. Most were divorced. Most were around mid 30's. This was in the 90's. Now nursing is a good path to middleclass for immigrants.)
That is no longer the case and many now require 4 year bachelor programs to be hired as RN nurses. My wife has her bachelors in nursing and runs an ER and the hiring requirements includes a bachelors degree in nursing and not a 2 year degree.