CNN article on nurses and job growth

Nurses General Nursing

Published

CNN Money published several nursing articles this morning regarding the job shortage for new grads based on information they got from allnurses members.

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Since the recession, health care has been the single biggest sector for job growth, but that doesn't mean it's easy to get hired.

Registered nurses fresh out of school are coming across thousands of job postings with an impossible requirement: "no new grads."

It's a problem well documented by the nursing industry. About 43% of newly licensed RNs still do not have jobs within 18 months after graduation, according to a survey conducted by the American Society of Registered Nurses.

New grads have taken to posting their frustrations on allnurses.com, a social network for nurses.

FULL ARTICLE: For nursing jobs, new grads need not apply

A slideshow of nurses and their struggles:

  1. Where's this so called shortage?
  2. Nursing jobs post "no new grads"
  3. If only I could get an in-person interview
  4. Dear Obama, Please help the nurses!
  5. Even with experience, I can't find work
  6. I want to make a difference
  7. Online applications are rejected instantly
  8. I can only find part-time work
  9. We're competing with thousands

Thanks for all who took the time to respond. You can make a difference!!!!

The article is the most popular discussion on CNN right now!!

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Original thread requesting for help from CNN reporter can be found at:

New Grad Nurses struggling to find jobs - CNN Reporter wants to hear from you

I'm just not sure what makes nurses so special in this problem. You go to the end of the slideshow, and it's people from all sorts of professions that can't get a job. The economy sucks right now. The whole "guaranteed job" thing isn't unique to nursing either. My sister was told we had a shortage of middle school math and science teachers. She got a teaching certificate in middle school math. Great recommendations from her student teaching position. Couldn't get a job. My other sister had to move 9 hours away from her home to get a job in another field. My dad has been working a 12 hour drive away from my mom for a few YEARS because it's the only place he can get a job in his field. My husband had a good 6 months without a paycheck with more than 20 hours on it. THEN gets told he can be laid off or go to a different branch that's over an hour from our home after working there for a decade.

It just sucks out there. For everyone. Not just nurses.

Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

I recently had 2 FT + 1 per diem RN position open in homecare agency Central intake due to growth and deliberately looked for new BSN grad applications: got turned down by 3 candidates as they wanted hospital experience. I was trying to give someone a foot in the door to a health care system with four hospitals that they could have moved after a year. Jaded over wasting my time and HR resources when they had no intention of accepting the position. Has delayed hiring for last position being filled x 2 months. Please, do not apply for a position you have no intention of taking.

Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
I'm just not sure what makes nurses so special in this problem. You go to the end of the slideshow, and it's people from all sorts of professions that can't get a job. The economy sucks right now. The whole "guaranteed job" thing isn't unique to nursing either. My sister was told we had a shortage of middle school math and science teachers. She got a teaching certificate in middle school math. Great recommendations from her student teaching position. Couldn't get a job. My other sister had to move 9 hours away from her home to get a job in another field. My dad has been working a 12 hour drive away from my mom for a few YEARS because it's the only place he can get a job in his field. My husband had a good 6 months without a paycheck with more than 20 hours on it. THEN gets told he can be laid off or go to a different branch that's over an hour from our home after working there for a decade.

It just sucks out there. For everyone. Not just nurses.

You're right, it does. In my case, it bothers me most of all that those who we should trust to be the voice of nursing, as they say they are, have tried to quash the truth when they did know it. Their public statements even acknowledging that things are not now what they once were -- were made so begrudgingly and so incompletely it bothered the populist in me alot (or a lot). It bothers me even more to think what they could have done when the problems first started to crop up. There's a petition for President Obama on the board somewhere. What if, instead of trying to insist the sky was still blue when everyone else saw the storm clouds rolling in, they had spearheaded the petition to President Obama themselves? Their "buttonholing" apparatus is already in place. Many of them are already well-connected with Congress and state elected officials. They just chose not to use it for that.

I can't speak for others, but when I chose nursing as a profession it wasn't my first or only career choice. The demand, variety and flexibility of the job factored greatly in my decision. I figured I could pursue other interests as an avocation, with the need for months of sidewalk-pounding eliminated. It was a fact-based choice, not a "special snowflake" attitude which says we ought to be different than other professions.

If you look at the comments, there is an ongoing argument about Obama and national debt and stuff about Bush as well as gun rights. The comments aren't reflecting the article that much.

They never do! *LOL*

Even on C-SPAN you can count on at least 40% of the callers having something to say that has totally no relation to the topic at hand.

I'm just not sure what makes nurses so special in this problem. You go to the end of the slideshow, and it's people from all sorts of professions that can't get a job. The economy sucks right now. The whole "guaranteed job" thing isn't unique to nursing either. My sister was told we had a shortage of middle school math and science teachers. She got a teaching certificate in middle school math. Great recommendations from her student teaching position. Couldn't get a job. My other sister had to move 9 hours away from her home to get a job in another field. My dad has been working a 12 hour drive away from my mom for a few YEARS because it's the only place he can get a job in his field. My husband had a good 6 months without a paycheck with more than 20 hours on it. THEN gets told he can be laid off or go to a different branch that's over an hour from our home after working there for a decade.

It just sucks out there. For everyone. Not just nurses.

IMHO it is a "problem" because many of those graduating now and within the past few years were sold a load of flannel about a shortage of nurses/nursing being one of the few growth careers/nursing having near 100% job security and so forth. You even had Obama/the federal government promoting nursing via community college degrees for "displaced" or otherwise made redundant employees.

Well it takes anywhere from three to four years or more for some to get admitted, complete and graduate from a nursing course then add a few weeks more to pass the NCLEX (hopefully). Sadly for many of those new grads the nursing employment dynamics changed in those five or so years.

As the article and other sources have stated nursing school enrollment has been at an all time high for years now. Problem is no one at first planned or now is even thinking about what is going to be done with thousands of newly licensed nurses created each year. Hospitals and other facilities surely do not care, it is happy hunting season for most as they are spoiled for choice. In many areas tons of experienced nurses almost begging for hours coupled with scores of new grads each year means all these places can pick and chose.

Aside from allnurses.com and now CNN you rarely hear the cold sad and hard facts about how hard it is for many new and experienced nurses to land full time gigs.

Most all reputable nursing programs have some contact and or input with local hospitals/health care facilities. After all they are where students will have their clincals and *hopefully* will be employed. Therefore cannot believe directors of nursing programs do not have a sit down with local DONs or whatever the head of nursing services are calling themselves about future new hire predictions.

ADN programs in particular where local hospitals have strongly moved to BSN only or BSN preferred should be telling applicants that up front.

I appreciate your response, but where are we going to get the "smallest amount" if we're not being hired from the get go?

Go for it with all the zeal and determination. our story don't have to be like someone else's. I am currently in nursing school with a positive attitude. I am confident that I will get a job despite everything.

So true ! I have been out of school since "93" and have seen so many changes ,and I am in school for my BSN just to keep up with the game. However, it is just like an article I read and I believe it is called "Death by degress " ,and it is about the push of college majors for school profit. Yes, for instance a few years ago the push for the pharmacy major because so many universities had opened Schools of Pharmacy. The new grads finish and can't find a job-at least in a location that they would like to reside. Sure ,there are jobs probably on the border with Mexico in the sticks.

Furthermore, don't look now- everywhere u look an advertisement for online nursing schools.Mark my words- Pretty soon entry level for a nurse will be MSN. Really ! At one time an ADN was enough, then so many nursing schools making the push for BSNs and competiton for jobs has made the BSN entry level-well with online schools most nurses I know are just taking classes for their MSNs .Plus, so many MSN nurses are working the harder units that where once thought of for new grads.

Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

Most all reputable nursing programs have some contact and or input with local hospitals/health care facilities. After all they are where students will have their clincals and *hopefully* will be employed. Therefore cannot believe directors of nursing programs do not have a sit down with local DONs or whatever the head of nursing services are calling themselves about future new hire predictions.

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I am one of those people who is a liaison between my hospital and the local schools. Back in 2008, I started telling anyone who would listen about upcoming changes in hiring ... the need for BSN's ... the dangers posed by the opening of quick, for-profit ADN programs in our region, etc. But few people listened back then. It's only been recently that they have begun to listen because I was saying things they didn't want to hear and didn't know how to deal with. It didn't fit their worldview, and so I was not taken seriously.

So true ! I have been out of school since "93" and have seen so many changes ,and I am in school for my BSN just to keep up with the game. However, it is just like an article I read and I believe it is called "Death by degress " ,and it is about the push of college majors for school profit. Yes, for instance a few years ago the push for the pharmacy major because so many universities had opened Schools of Pharmacy. The new grads finish and can't find a job-at least in a location that they would like to reside. Sure ,there are jobs probably on the border with Mexico in the sticks.

Furthermore, don't look now- everywhere u look an advertisement for online nursing schools.Mark my words- Pretty soon entry level for a nurse will be MSN. Really ! At one time an ADN was enough, then so many nursing schools making the push for BSNs and competiton for jobs has made the BSN entry level-well with online schools most nurses I know are just taking classes for their MSNs .Plus, so many MSN nurses are working the harder units that where once thought of for new grads.

Wow, that does totally suck. Sure do miss the corner pharmacy like we all had growing up. And the whole MSN things you've told us about really is bad.

I do read and talk to a lot of MDs. They are feeling threatened for various reasons too. They all say that because of all the changes going on with MDs @50 percent of them actively dissuade those they know from going into medicine. Many find that their residencies were lacking too and often the reaction to that was to just get into yet another fellowship to try and get the training they need to practice safely. They did sell themselves out @10-15 years ago when some began selling out to the big networks to become employees. Now in some areas it is impossible to succeed in private practice due to being totally shut out by the power of these networks. Like I said, I've been reading and conversing for years with certain bloggers, and to one I commented that it sounded like he's got a crappy nursing gig now (LOL).

They also hear all the shortage crap pertaining to a shortage of MDs. This is strangely the same as the "nursing shortage". Yet they hold on and say nobody will go into medicine, and we'll all quit ...I reply that people don't listen, and there will always be plenty who will drink the drank and stumble off that cliff. Lots of people just don't want to hear it. At some point you just have to stop trying to save them, and know that it's their right to jump - just be glad you didn't mix that drank for them.

Do you have the link to the tweet?

The link? The tweet is the link to the CNN article itself. You know twitter, not much room to elaborate on a tweet.

And I heard the story mentioned on CBS Channel 2 Chicago this morning.

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