How is agency work right now

[coco3299]

I have had high hopes of FINALLY getting my agency off the ground, but I recenlty ran into a lady who has a FT RN job after quitting working for an agency for the past five years. I did not dive into her business and ask if it was her OWN agency like me, but she was pretty hard set on the fact that agency work is too slow now and only the big agencies are surviving. It seems to me that larger agencies must maintain their high bill rates whereas mine are low with very little overhead and hospitals (feeling the crunch in these tough times) may actually be looking for an easier way to maintain staff. But then again nurses seem to be searching for the FT gig because of job uncertainty these days and there may not be alot of nurses to go around... What do you guys think? Has your agency work been really slow and sucky lately, do you work for a large mainstream company or a small time company?

CC

[nursejulie22]

I think agency rates are controversial right now. Some of the big agencies, like American Mobile, are only paying their nurses $30 an hour for a travel assignment. I was working for a small local agency and they were paying me $42 an hour. I think the difficulty right now is getting into hospital as a new contractor and or agency.