Is there an oversaturation of nurses now or soon

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I currently finished school and am now working. It was extremely easy to find a job. But now it seems like the schools are pumping out more nurses than they have jobs for. I know they say that with the baby boomers getting old that there will be alot more jobs. Well it seems like in the near future the job market for nurses will be oversaturated. THe city of el paso has 3 nursing schools now that probably produce 60 nursing students every semester. There are not that many jobs in this city. It also seems like everyone is leaving their regular careers to become a nurse because they believe this is where the money is at. I feel like I must get my masters just to set myself apart from the rest of the workforce along with accredidations. It feels like I am in a race against time. Does anyone feel the same?

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I think that there is already an over saturation of inexperienced nurses in my area. What I am betting on is that people will live longer, nurses part of the baby boomer group will retire, and the baby boomers will need to go to the hospital/hospice more often. I'm set to attend fall 2009 semester at a community college to complete prerequisite RN courses.

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Specializes in Emergency, Trauma, Critical Care.

about 40% of current RN's are over age 50, with our huge amount of baby boomers/obesity, etc. I believe nurses will be needed, but mostly in areas where people don't like to work, night shift in hospitals.

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The consensus is that there is currently a tight job market. It is also felt that this is temporary and a demographic shortage is a few years away. The glut could end as soon as 6 months or as long as five years no one is really good at making short term guesses.

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