Objectives: to reflect on the impacts of Brazil's response to the COVID-19 pandemic demands on the nursing labor market in light of the recovery of experiences in the USA during the World War II.
Methods: this is a discursive formulation, which discusses the nursing labor market, establishing analogies between historical events.
Results: measures implemented in the World War II by the USA are similar to those that the Brazilian Federal Government has adopted, and, as in the USA, such measures strongly affected both professional training and the nursing labor market. In Brazil, the measures can also deepen problems in the national nursing labor market, reverberating in precariousness.
Conclusions: a better way to meet the demand for nursing workers can be with the existing supply of trained and available workers.