It is a competitive market for nurses - 17% vacancy rate!!!

jofapcastillo · Dec 9, 2013

I CANNOT believe this article from Forbes. Look what it says about the nursing job market. Did I mis-read that?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2013/12/08/doctor-nurse-vacancies-soar-amid-obamacare-rollout/

Scary! But dont lose hope! Stay positive all the time!

roser13, ASN, RN · Dec 9, 2013

Looks to me as if the article is using the term "nurse" as in Nurse Practitioner. Not us garden-variety RN's/LPN's.

CrunchRN, ADN, RN · Dec 9, 2013

Looks to me as if the article is using the term "nurse" as in Nurse Practitioner. Not us garden-variety RN's/LPN's.

Aha! That must be it. I guess I should have read the whole thing, but I was just so shocked by the 1st part......

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Dec 10, 2013

I can believe that some hospitals have a 17% vacancy rate for staff nurse positions. I can also believe that hospitals have no intentions of filling these vacancies to save themselves money. My former floor most definitely has fewer FTEs on staff now than they did 5 years ago... and they have no jobs listed.

blondy2061h, MSN, RN · Dec 10, 2013

Looks to me as if the article is using the term "nurse" as in Nurse Practitioner. Not us garden-variety RN's/LPN's.

No, they're not. It later mentions that NP's and PA's are also in demand, having a 15% vacancy.

roser13, ASN, RN · Dec 10, 2013

I can believe that some hospitals have a 17% vacancy rate for staff nurse positions. I can also believe that hospitals have no intentions of filling these vacancies to save themselves money. My former floor most definitely has fewer FTEs on staff now than they did 5 years ago... and they have no jobs listed.

If they have no FTE's listed, how can they be considered to have ANY % vacancies?

CrunchRN, ADN, RN · Dec 10, 2013

Just amazing that they say that in the article when the reality is so different!

HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD · Dec 10, 2013

I know of several hospitals with ~ 10% vacancy rate... but there is a reason. They have jacked up productivity expectations to such an extent that they can't keep staff & will only hire 'experienced' staff because they have also cut education & orientation. Yep, the classic descending spiral.

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · Dec 10, 2013

Just amazing that they say that in the article when the reality is so different!

Don't believe everything you read it also included MD's

CrunchRN, ADN, RN · Dec 10, 2013

Esme,

That is my point. You totally missed it. I know what the reality is, but in the face of this huge new grad and even experienced nurse unemployment rate this article implies exactly the opposite. We have anything BUT a nursing shortage as we well know. However, this article from Forbes implies there is quite the nursing shortage. Although it later talks about NP's, anybody reading this will think there is a terrible RN shortage:

"A survey by health care provider staffing firm AMN Healthcare shows the vacancy rate for physicians at hospitals near 18 percent in 2013 while the nurse vacancy rate is 17 percent. That vacancy rate is more than three times what it was just four years ago when vacancies for nurses were just 5.5 percent in 2009 while vacancies for doctors were 10.7 percent.

“There is a war for talent,” Sean Gregory, president of Health First Holmes Regional Medical Center, a 400-bed hospital in Melbourne, Florida……"

applewhitern, BSN, RN · Dec 10, 2013

I read the article in Forbes a few days ago, too. I thought the same thing; anyone reading it would think there was a huge shortage of nurses. There may certainly be a shortage of all medical practitioners in future, however, including doctors and nurses. We have had several doctors in my area close their practice in the last month, claiming they simply don't want to deal with the excessive paperwork, low reimbursements, etc., and we baby-boomer nurses are getting close to retirement.