During economic upswing nurses primarily lost out (2,5)
I believe the answer is:
in bloom
'out' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot judge whether it can be defined by this definition.
'during economic upswing nurses primarily lost' is the wordplay.
'during' becomes 'in' (e.g. during February means in February).
'economic upswing' becomes 'boom' (I've seen this in another clue).
'nurses' indicates putting letters inside (nurse can mean to hold onto or harbour).
'primarily' says to take the initial letters.
The first letter of 'lost' is 'l'.
'boom' enclosing 'l' is 'bloom'.
'in'+'bloom'='IN BLOOM'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for in bloom that I've seen is " Flowering".)