Is nursing shortage a myth?

Angitia · Dec 4, 2010

Hello all,

I'm a nursing student. I've been alerted by a few articles, blogs, and forums from which it appears that new grads RNs have trouble finding jobs. Since I only want to trust reliable sources

I've been doing research all night, and here is information (shocking, unless I'm counting wrong) I've found.

This is from NCSBN satistics, which can be found on their website: https://www.ncsbn.org/1236.htm

Statistics by year:

2000

There were 3,103,981 active RN licences in the US

There were 151,982 total new RNs(this includes RNs getting a license by endorsement,

so let's say about half are new grads)

2005

3,338,888 active licenses in the US

87,864 by NCLEX (new grads)

77,011 by endorsement

And in 2008 (the most recent year posted):

there were 3,733,299 active licenses

94,321by NCLEX (new grads)

81,834 by endorsement

Now, The Bureau of Labor Statistics at http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos083.htm newest 2010-11 edition states that

"Registered nurses (RNs) constitute the largest healthcare occupation, with 2.6 million jobs".

With active license being active for 2 years in most states, we can safely assume that an active license means a person who intends to get a job as a nurse. Let's do some math here.

There were 3,733,299 active RN licenses in the US in 2008, and 2,618,700 jobs.

So, there were 1,114,599 nurses without jobs.

This number will be higher in 2018, since about 90,000 persons pass NCLEX each year.

So in 8 years years there will be 4.5 million licensed RNs, and how many jobs, according to BLS projections? --

3,200,200

Now, I'm a nursing student, I've pretty much put my life on the line to get this degree,

so obviously I don't want to scare myself, or anybody else.

Am I reading these numbers incorrectly? Are they suggesting that over 1 million people got or renewed their licenses and then

within two years married some rich guys and decided not to work, or that over 1 million people were not looking for work?

Or have we been duped? into thinking that there's shortage and high demand, and we are guaranteed to find jobs?

Who's going to be responsible for this if this is true and there is a shortage of nursing jobs, not nurses? And if this is true,

what are we going to do about it? Demonstrations, protests? Or quietly complaining on online forums?

Please, share your opinions. I'm extremely concerned about this. I hope that I just don't know how these things are calculated

and my suspicions are all wrong. Thank you