> If there are people with the skills that are willing to travel, it seems that a system that maintained maximum capacity in all locations would be a very wasteful one.

The general idea here is that more and more nurses are willing to do this because they are underpaid and overworked in their regular (non-Travel Nurse) positions. I didn’t see anyone arguing for “maximum capacity” either… just better wages and working conditions.

> basic skills appear to be VERY transferable from location to location

If you read the parent comment by sllewe you will see that there are other costs and concerns around this which do more to stress existing nurses at whatever hospital is being filled with travel nurses. Imagine training a new someone every week (or however often new travel nurses pop up) while also having to do your own job… especially when you are already being overworked and when a miscalculation on your part could result in loss of life. All the while knowing that the travel nurse is making significantly more money than you, negotiated their hours of availability and doesn’t have to care about the unit beyond whatever contract length they signed up for..

The reason why it's expected for nursing in particular is the indicator that something here is very wrong.