How is the market for LPNs?

Simba&NalasMom, LPN · Feb 18, 2013

Not too good right now; I've been an LPN for 8 years but got into the vicious agency cycle, don't have the most stable work history, and have been having a hard time finding work. Very saturated with new grads. If you like home health, you might find work with some of the HH agencies. Based on what I've seen, LPNs are not very well respected here in Portland. We do not have an independent role, are only technically allowed to do focused assessments, cannot delegate, and hospitals have not hired new LPNs in a really long time.

The VA also advertises from time to time, but when I called them a couple years ago they told me the hiring process is 3-6 months. It's just a tight market for nurses in general, whether they are RNs or LPNs.

niskagirl · Feb 23, 2013

Unfortunately the market is being saturated with two year RN’s that are now being used in the LTC facilities instead of LPN’s. The hospitals are requiring BSN’s by the year 2018, so many associate RN’s are not being hired into the hospital systems at this time. The SNF I worked at during PN school as a CNA, fired or let go all the LPN’s and hired RN’s. The DON stated, we can hire RN’s to look good and they only make a dollar more than the LPN’s.

Home health hires LPN’s, some hospices hire LPN’s, Kaiser Hospital is hiring LPN’s for their clinics, and other clinics are using LPN’s as MA’s. We have a ton of nursing programs out here...including quite a few for profit schools...so it’s rough for LPN’s (new grad RN’s as well) out here in the Portland area at least. Here is the link for Kaiser:

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