DECREASE in pay when need is gone?

My experience has been that pay goes up rather slowly when there is a need and down or flat rather quickly when the need is gone. But let us see what other's think. That is just my opinion.

Base pay in unlikely to go down, but sign-on bonuses would disappear. Weekend pay plans and other special hours plan to attract nurses get phased out.

my neice was working at a cardiac icu unit when the hospital decided to close it and combine it with the regular icu

nurses were offered a job in another part of the hospital but there was no guarantee that they would be on same shift and with no choice of floors several decided to resign

kicker here was that within a year they split the icus again and opened up another cardiac icu

i don't think that you have a worry about rate of pay going down.

You could ask the same question about any field/career where there has been a demand for people to fill the positions, and then a burst of interest in people who will do it.

Pay never goes down, just the selectivity goes up. Meaning, it's quite conceivable that the supply will eventually reach the point where employers don't have to hire anyone with a pulse and a valid license to fill a spot, they might actually get to be choosy.

Pay doesn't drop. But available positions diminish, and therefore the relatively high increases in pay cease to continue. But stopping an upward spiral in pay is not the same thing as decreasing it. At some point, leveling off occurs....eventually. I plan to be either retired or dead by then

In times of less need payrates are more likely to go "flat", that is not actually decreasing in dollar amount, but not going up at the rate of inflation, so that the actual buying power of that same hourly rate effectively goes down. When the needs go down, getting a new job gets harder and the rate for starting a new job may be lower if there are people willing to take it for a lower rate in order to have a job. This is when some employers tend to find reason to pressure the long term highest paid employees out. I don't think however that it would be a case of your employer saying "We're going to cut your rate by "X" dollars an hour."

No.

What I have seen over the years is that our yearly increases went from 4-5% to 2-3% and the maximum salaries have remained stagnant. Meaning after so many years you salary maxes out and you don't get raises. I've been in that unfortunate situation of working hard all year, only to be told I'm maxed and don't get a raise.

I've never seen them lower salaries. Although they may lower the entry level salaries for new grads and hires, but not the salaries of existing nurses. I think as long as there are areas in the country where the need for nurses is going to remain, then salaries should remain steady.