So, what happened to all the nursing jobs?

Nurses General Nursing

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Can anyone tell me. "What happened to all the nursing jobs." For the last few years all you read was that there will be a nursing shortage till, at least 2020. That getting a nursing job was as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Articles were saying that even in a recession nursing would be immune because people still need healthcare.

So, what happened. Is it really the economy? Have all the vacancies been filled? What about the huge bonuses nurses were getting to sign with a hospital? Some of my own relatives got these bonuses so I know they were real. Now some of them are seeing their hours and benefits cut. Besides the recession (which is a big thing) are there other factors involved?

The nursing profession is starting to remind me of when they encouraged everyone to become programmers...and then the outsourcing began. You can't really outsource nursing, but it's the same situation. Encourage young people in droves to go into a profession, but then a few short years later the field dries up. It's a shame, really.

Ray

Specializes in LTC, Disease Management, smoking Cessati.

The owners and stock holders want all the money, so they get rid of nurses to have more for themselves...... it has become a money racket..... don't matter what they tell you its greed. And patients suffer the most....

Freedom42,

Is that right? Companies are encouraging their employees to have surgeries out of the States? What the heck is going on????? That is the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time!!! To save a few bucks, people's lives are being jeopardized? CRAAAAAZZZZYYYY!!!!! :eek:

So....am I attempting to go into the wrong profession???? Wow.....

Medical tourists aren't necessarily jeopardizing their lives. Many go to hospitals accredited by an arm of the very same Joint Commission that accredits hospitals in the United States. Many of those hospitals employ doctors who were educated at U.S. medical schools. They can offer topnotch care at a fraction of the price -- in some cases, with a price tag that's 75 percent lower than what's charged at an American hospital. So those patients don't need nurses in the United States to care for them.

On the other hand, Fiona makes a good point: You undergo surgery in a foreign country and you might wind up needing repairs in another country. (Of course, it your surgery backfires here in the good old US of A, you might wind up going to another hospital as well.) Still, I remember a company offering a great deal on Lasik eye surgery a few years ago in Montreal. I think it was $500 per eye, literally half what Boston docs were charging. Several of my co-workers went to Canada, had the procedure done, and were very happy with the results.

I do think that once this recession eases, hiring will resume. But I worry that many nursing jobs have been permanently eliminated or replaced by aides and techs. Once hospitals find they can "get by" with an employee who doesn't have a license but costs less, they're not likely to rehire an RN. The other problem we newbies face is that many nurses have put off their retirements to make up for stock market losses. Until they retire, those jobs are locked up.

I think that as the recession clears up more jobs will begin to open up again.

This won't happen overnight. Many nurses that had retired came back to work because of lost money in their retirement funds. I'm quite certain they will have to stick around for another 5+ years to recoup their losses before they head back into retirement. THEN we may see a nursing shortage!

Anyone getting into the nursing profession - with money and job security at the top of their list - is getting into it for the wrong reasons, in my opinion.

I think I can speak for most people here that the financial motivation behind any profession is a huge factor. Yes, I like caring for people, couldn't picture myself doing anything else, but I'm also not doing it for free!

...you will not find recruiters heading into colleges and offering up jobs to students about to graduate anymore.

Nope. Not at all. The school practically has to beg recruiters to come visit. And when they do, they bring free food along with their high GPA requirements and all sorts of stipulations that rules out about 2/3rds of the class from qualifying for an internship position. You can forget the sign on bonuses, too. (Ok there are a few remote hospitals that still offer them, but they are rare.)

Specializes in Vascular Interventional Radiology & PACU.

I live in Ohio and the nursing jobs are very scarce. I'm a independent provider now. Have you considered becoming independent?

Specializes in babysitting.

they always say that. they said that about computer science too back in the 80's telling high schoolers to go into computers because that is where the money and job security was at. now we look back and see where that got alot of computer grads. i think they just say that. you can't go by those projections. you just have to go in something you think you might like to do.

Specializes in LTC, Hospice, Case Management.
I live in Ohio and the nursing jobs are very scarce. I'm a independent provider now. Have you considered becoming independent?

What do you do as an independent?

i think hospitals still need nurses but they can't afford them. i'm always hearing about dangerously low nurse to patient ratios. i'm not sure if this is how it's always been. it's crazy all the hype that was created about the huge demand for nurses-it's still out there too! i'm like, "where are you getting these figures? no one is hiring!!!" lol i'm hoping by the time i graduate things are better but it's not looking too good =/

Specializes in OB/GYN, Peds, School Nurse, DD.
i think that as the recession clears up more jobs will begin to open up again.

i believe this too. a lot of nurses have gone back to work to a) put bread on the table when their husbands(or wives) got laid off and b) to rebuild their retirement which took a huge hit in the last 2 years.

anyone getting into the nursing profession - with money and job security at the top of their list - is getting into it for the wrong reasons, in my opinion.

eh, what's wrong with that? i went into nursing for the money and job security at the top of my list. at the time it was one of the few professions for women which could guarantee you a job and the ability to support a family. i'm a very good, conscientious nurse but let's not kid ourselves. if nursing paid minimum wage nobody would do it.

one thing that has not yet happened, but is in our very near future, is the retirement of the baby boomer generation. i think once we see that come to fruition the job market will open up considerably.

this is a very important point. i don't know the statistics, but last time i checked the avg nurse was 47yo. that means there's a sizable number who are actually older than that. some nurses will probably be working until they fall into the grave, but i bet the majority will be happy to retire with their bad knees, feet and backs at 62-67.

i have no intention of working past 62, if i even do it that long. i'm 53, been a nurse for 32 years. that's a long time in nursing years.i love nursing, but i'm at the point where i will only work at a job that i love and that gives me a lot of strokes. lucky for me, i have that. i'm a school nurse. the salary is crappy but i get paid in hugs and smiles.:nurse:

*****

I think the baby boomer retirment will make the demand go up again between now and the next 5 years. There are a lot of nurses where I work that are retiring starting this year. Many more will be retiring in the next few years. Some of them should have retired already :)

You know, it amazes me how blind some people can be to the facts. I just browsed through the answers briefly and these answers are laughable. I am surprised that those nurses who have been in the field a while are not more aware of whats going on. I will try and be brief here, but basically this is what has happened (in my opinion). If you take a look around at the customer of the medical profession in general who are they? The elderly! Not teenagers, not middle agers, but the old people, and yes young people get sick too, let's just get that straight. This is because they have this wonderful guaranteed cash cow that came into play during one of our nation's worst recessions-MEDICARE!!!!. For years doctors and companies have used and used this Medicare system and in my opinion generated a whole industry built on getting paid (meds, clinics, home health companies) and ultimately began to abuse the system. If you were to work in various fields of heathcare you can see just how much the system is now abused. Doctors try and keep these patients in the hospital for the silliest, simplest things to get the guaranteed dollar. Private insurance companies can't hold a candle to a Government run entity such as Medicare. So what has happened is that the powers that be have decided that the abuse of the system cannot go on. Everyday at my hospital we hear about a new protocol we have to make sure we are implementing so that we can get our Medicare reimbursement-because the system is running out.

This is why after so many years of toying with the idea of universal healthcare it is finally a big deal. Many people have contributed to the idea of having a Medicare 'for all' type system, because of obvious reasons. However, in order to save face and be fair the idea was downsized to a 'public option' to still give the other private insurance companies room to compete so they can't come back later and say they were booted (but anyone with good sense can see by the way they are scrambling to rally morons to their side and coin such phrases as 'death panels' they know it too that they will be out of business either way it goes because their business are build on screwing the customer and they couldn't compete just like they can't compete with Medicare and decided to join in with parts such as D or supplements.) So back to the suject- the system is running out. And with the nation now in another supposed recession people are losing their jobs and their insurance and relying more heavily on other government run programs such as Medicaid or none at all (which FYI the government coughs up the bill for because many people cannot afford to pay). So this year the Medicare budget was cut (Im not sure if it was cut because the money is running THAT low yet, or if someone is trying to make a point while rallying supporters of the universal healthcare, if the latter-a smart move I must say. So now that the budgets are cut hospitals are now cutting back any way they can. And not just hospitals-take a look around at any field of medicine-home health, hospitals, DME companies, they are all cutting back. And its NOT because they are fully staffed, you would be silly to think that, and I know you are not because you already asessed the drastic change in the industry touting their shortage one year and drying up the next, eh! So, at my facility, for example. Nurses are required to work mandatory overtime every other week already, now they have implemented a mandatory 'on call' which equates to overtime the other week. They cannot afford to hire new people because they are not getting the patient load they once were. Doctors are now turning away patients to go home and 'rest' where as they used to admit them for the silliest things. It shows me two things A)Just how unecessary many admissions and treatments are/were and just a way to abuse the system for money and B)How our medical system will be in serious jeapordy if we continue to rely on Medicare to get paid. So to answer your question and comment on some of the answers- the well is running dry and we are already missing our water and soon it may just be gone. The healthcare system is sort of like the housing market, they got their hands on one thing and milked it and milked it until it ran out. You cant base entire operations on one lick.

Just as a sidebar, it amazes me how so many people are against universal/ Government regulated healthcare when this is going to be the saving grace for healthcare professionals because we will again see a rise in our patient population (and not just grandma and grandpa-Thank You! But that people fail to realize how the government has always had to come to the rescue of our nation because we are a group of capitalists who steal change when no one is watching and eventually rob the system blind and before people are the wiser it's too late!! Government mandated Medicare is one of the best parts about getting old if you ask some people so why are we fighting a system, that is known to work-and work- and work and work so well until it finally got ran down?

Yes there is an influx of nursing trying to enter the field, but not enough to account for this type or drought.And nursing is not being outsourced.

OK that's my soap box :)

I think now ( i have witnessed at my hospital) Hospitals mostly only hire people with ties , or who have been working at the hospital for a while in a diff area. I do not see alot of new nurses comming on , but rather CNAS and TECHS graduating with there RN and taking up the nurse openings. I know for instance that our ICCU manager hired me from the lab over a new person that did not work there. Also, the labor and delivery manager likes to hire cnas in nursing school so they can upgrade to nurses in a few years

very nice view coco...but it goes deeper than that. we all better wake up and realise that this monetary system and the fractional reserve system is only going to sedate the united states for so much longer. the federal reserve can only keep printing so much money before it reaches its theoretical limits and if the u.n. votes our dollar into submission...then i really fear what the ripple effects will be.

bottom line... we better start making something real soon or were going to be just another kid on the block and not a world leader.......feeding the hands of other countries who we have controlled for so long via our little contrived and unconstitutional federal reserve practices. ( see: u.s.'s number #1 export-money we dont have yet print to look like we have ).

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