Help me understand....

Read the post from"Guy in Babyland" over and over a few times if it doesn't sink in the first time. He makes a few valid points -- though I don't agree with everything he said 100%.

Most people expected that the baby boomers (now in the 60's and 50's) would retire at the same age as previous generations. Therefore, they that shortages would occur as that generation got into their late 50's and beyond. In fact, there were shortages in the early part of this century as many of us boomers went reduced our work hours as we aged.

However, a couple of things changed -- or are different for the boomers than for previous generations.

1. A lot of boomers lost a lot of money in the Great Recession

2. There is a high divorce rate among boomers -- meaning that there are more boomer RN's who are single -- and who need full time employment in their 50's and 60's. They don't have husbands to help with meeting their financial needs.

3. Most boomers aren't getting the same pensions that previous generations got.

4. Boomers had kids later in life, meaning that they are paying college bills and helping our their kids at a later age than previous generations did.

5. Society's vision of retirement has changed. People want an active retirement, with travel, a few luxuries, etc. -- not just a rocking chair on a porch. That costs money.

6. Boomers as a whole weren't great savers. We were consumers.

7. Life spans have increased, meaning more retirement funds are needed to support ourselves than previous generations.

etc. etc. etc. Boomers are less able to retire -- or at least cut back their hours -- than previous generations. So we are working longer.

However ... I believe that there will be some degree of shortage in the years ahead. The boomers can't keep working forever ... and eventually, they will reduce their hours and/or retire completely. No one can predict that exactly. But when we do eventually start leaving the workforce, there may be a lot of available jobs. I already see that happening in some areas and in some of my hospital's units. The number of people talking about retiring or semi-retiring within the next 5 years has increased dramatically now that people are back on relatively stable economic footing.

It was a guess. An educated guess based on history, but still a guess. And as with the Magic 8 Ball, the guess was wrong, for all those reasons stated previously.

Other than areas that are much less desirable to live in, the only true shortages are of experienced nurses in certain specialty areas. I'd kill for some experienced OR RNs to come to my facility at the moment, but because a new grad or even an experienced nurse new to the OR needs a 6-9 month ​orientation, it takes forever to get them up and running solo.

My hospital is in the same boat. We need highly specialized nurses (e.g. OR nurses) that don't take a year to start "pulling their own weight." We have a a shortage of those kinds of nurses.

We don't have a shortage of new grads who just want to work in a hospital for only a year or two -- and who will leave to grad school, outpatient settings, etc. after they have taken our extensive orientation and new grad transition support.