Originally Posted by nyforlove
Hi Quickbeam,
I'm curious as to how bad that time was for nurses...it was around 1995--1996, right?...I know that NEW nurses had a hard time finding hospital jobs and many who graduated at that time went grudgingly into nursing home jobs, but I don't understand how so many already-employed-nurses could suddenly get let go....did the nurse patient ratios suddenly go from 1:5 to 1:10???? Did hospitals suddenly close??? Thanks for your perspective
It varied from place to place. In some places, hospitals closed ... and yes, experienced nurses were suddenly out of work and competing with their similarly now-unemployed coworkers for the few available jobs.
In other places, hospitals (or individual units) merged. The nursing staff who worked on the effected units had to "re-apply" for their jobs to form the "new, combined staff" that would work in the "new" unit. While most experienced nurses were "re-hired" into the new jobs, some would lose their former schedules, opportunities for overtime, and/or other benefits of seniority.
Most common was that positions that came open as a result of normal turnover were simply left unfilled. In a typical year, "normal" turnover ranges anywhere from 5% to 20%. By simply not filling those positions as people leave or decrease their hours (in response to family needs, etc.), an employer can reduce its staff significantly over a few months without laying anyone off.
Another thing that happens when an employer reduces its RN staff is that they hire more support staff -- nursing assistants, etc. In fact, they often increase the number of support staff first to get them oriented first. Once those less expensive people are oriented and the workload on the RN has been reduced slighlty, then they start to not fill those vacant positions. The RN's may not even notice at first that positions are going unfilled for a while because they can "make it through their shift" with the extra support staff and with occasional overtime, internal float pools, etc. But over the course of a year or two, the budgeted positions for the unit get reduced and the RN
atient ratio worsens. And as the unit/hospital uses fewer RN's (and more support staff), the RN's in the community have a harder time finding good jobs. Pay goes down, scheduling options get less flexible, etc.
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