Hang in there, new grads!

Nurses General Nursing

Published

The Washington Post just published this piece entitled "The job machine grinds to a halt."

The author claims that corporate America, while cutting jobs, is booking record profits.

He says the way they're doing this is by shipping more jobs overseas.

Yah, they can try shipping a Hill-Rom Total Care with a 300-lb pt in it.

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unfortunately, when mentioning I'm recently graduated in nursing, the response is always along the lines of "but nurses are always in demand"....The thing with nursing is that it's not a major like sociology, computer science, etc. We have been trained in school with a specific set of skills, so we are looking for a specific type of employment. A person with a degree in sociology, computer science, etc. can look at multiple companies and organizations with a wide variety of job skills. In many of the jobs they are applying for, you can have no experience or 10 years of experience in a different field and still be considered. Looking at hospital jobs, I can't even apply to more than half of them because they only want experienced nurses.

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Specializes in Family Practice, Urgent Care, Cardiac Ca.

The irony of the typical response, "Oh but you'll always have a job!"...sigh

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We used to joke that you could always find work as an English major--in a record store. And that's increasingly true for all the social "sciences." You can either take whatever's out there or get on the dole.

Nursing is still a great job path for the same reasons it was a few years ago, because those reasons haven't gone away. It demands more ability and adaptibility than most jobs. Not everyone can or will do it. It's anti-recessionary. People need nurses in bad times and good, and nursing jobs can't be shipped overseas. It's portable. It's satisfying in ways those in other jobs can only dream of (if you think nurses are frustrated, read Studs Terkel's Working to get a feel of how those in other fields feel about their jobs).

And if I were going to get into something new again, right now in this job market, I'd still choose nursing. Look around you. Yeah, things are bad. But they're bad all over. Instead, compare nursing with other fields. Retail? Research? Teaching? Fitness? Nursing is still the clear winner.

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Specializes in LTC.

The post by "anonymurse" is absolutely true. I have been a stock market watcher for a long time, in fact I taught myself about how the market works, etc. We are just coming to the end of earnings season for the 2nd quarter (the period from April 1 to June 30). All the big corporations are reporting double digit profits. I even saw one that scored something like an 83% profit increase (IBM). On the same day, on the front page of my local newspaper side by side with that monumental profit increase, was the statement that IBM planned to lay off more workers. My particular area has been devastated by IBM layoffs for about 20 years now. We were a "company town" meaning that 90% of employment here fed off the benefits of IBM workers. When IBM started laying off for the first time in its history in 1990, many local businesses went belly up and never came back. My area has now become a "bedroom community" for commuters to New York City 60 miles away. Jobs have been scant here for years. Once companies have accomplished massive layoffs/outsourcing and no longer have to pay relatively high salaries, benefits and health care costs to American workers, then of course you are going to have higher profits. But these are not profits in the sense that most of us understand the word "profits". These are actually cost savings which are being termed profits. It is not money they earned, it is money they succeeded in keeping by cutting spending. How this impacts all of us as nurses is that far less people now have health insurance so, at least in the short term, less people are being admitted to hospitals as they stay home and hope that any emerging ailments do not progress any further. It also leaves facilities devastated as they have less patients who come from private insurance and more who come from government based programs for the poor, which are notoriously poor payers. So, this is the situation we are all in. And, by the way, I am recent BSN grad myself.

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Hey Tankweti,

Any stock tips? LOL Message me. A girl's gotta pay off loans whilst she looks for non-existant work in a career that promises to always have work for her....

sigh. :uhoh3:

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Specializes in NICU.

keep at it fellow new grads! if this offers any sort of encouragement, I graduated in Dec09 and was just offered a position at not only a great hospital, but in my unit of preference. Stay strong and keep those applications flowing :) You never know which application could be the "golden ticket"

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Specializes in ICU + Infection Prevention.

You can't offshore nursing. BUT you can oversaturate the labor market. Look at my area.

The Denver Metro area has 9 different schools pumping out new RNs. Several of these schools are graduating multiple classes (up to 4 classes per school) per year. That's about 1000 to 1500 new RNs per year.

Everyone wants to be a nurse. Schools will meet the demand. That doesn't mean the job market needs what the schools are pumping out. Denver is producing a new RN for every 2,000 residents EACH YEAR. That is way too many nurses. Denver is not the only area like this.

Now consider that hundreds of people leave the state because they can't get into local programs with the hope of moving back to the area to be a nurse. They go to nursing schools in WY, NE, KS, OK, etc.

Combine that over-saturation with all the former nurses reentering the profession due to low labor demand in other sectors, all the nurses who can't retire as planned, and all the part timers who went full time, and it is easy to see why new grads are having such a hard time.

The nursing bubble burst. Those new grads who want to be nurses will stick with it at make it long term, I am sure, but it won't be a smooth ride and I foresee pay steadily decreasing.

It's not like there are no jobs in my area, but for many new grads, there will be no jobs and for most new grads there will not be ideal jobs.

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I've learned to settle for applying for just about any nursing position I am remotely qualified as a new grad, but as I grew up, I was also taught to "not settle" and "go for the gold" as many of my fellow grads were in my generation. So combine this with the problem of not being able to select our ideal job, then employers will be left with new grads that they pay to orient for 1-2 months, then once we can apply to the "experience only" positions, we'll be out the door. This may sound like my generation is spoiled and/or foolish, but that's reality of this job market situation.

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I completely agree with summitAP on saturation. I spent the better part of today getting my hair done infront of the tv and you would not believe how many nursing schools exist in this part of Indiana now. And don't even get me started with their commercials- every five minutes like clockwork. I place the blame squarely on the ALN and whatever other organizations that are handing out accreditation to whatever so-called college that wants one. If things keep up the way they are now, nurses will be making $8 an hour in the future.

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