Yesterday, in clinicals the students I teach had an opportunity to speak one of the senior nursing directors of the hospital. The main question they asked her was about gettings a job after graduation.
The nursing director was polite but told then the current reality of the job market. She did make numerous suggestions (volunter, internships, look at Home health, LTC, etc) but her answers did not satisfy the group.
This class is made up of 2nd degree Accelerated BSN students who are looking to get to work as soon as they graduate.
After the nursing director left, I also tried to encourage the students to look into voluntering and internship as a way to develop contacts to get in the door.
In NYC it is very difficult to get work even if you are an experienced nurse...too many hospital closures and reduction of staffing levels. Adding to this LTC and HH are also not open to new nurses without experience with LTC looking for LPN's over the RN.
I did state to the students that if they think nursing is an easy ride, they are misinformed. I have been in nursing to have seen several booms and busts. In the early to mid 70's, it was tough to get a job as it was in the early to mid 90's. In my opinion it is even worse now.
Any ideas on how these new students can get their foot in the door and start working.
One student said "I choice nursing so I can get a check, not so I can volunter and intern...I need to work".
I really do not know how to answer her other than to tell her that this is the way of the world today but hopefully things will turn around shortly.
As an aside, several major facility in NYC are looking at re-inventing the services they render under "account care organizations". Part of the re-invention is streamlining staffing and building greater efficency into the system.
All of this obviously is reducing nursing and support care which are costly. The cost of staff is so great when you add benefits, it is better to go with agency staff as a cost saving measure. Also agency rates are down which helps as the agency do not have to bid up wages to get experienced nurses.
In my regular job as a nursing administrator, I can tell you that budget cuts and reductions are real and will only get worse. NY state has just reduced Mediciad across the board for all providers and it expected to have another reduction before the year's end.
As a nurse who is near the end of her career, I just have to survive to my retirement but for the new nurses and nurses in school, I really do feel sorry for them. Too many people went into nursing thinking it was a quick ride to a job that had a living wage. Several of my second degree students tried in their first career but could not get their foot in the door or could not make a living ( I've had writters, journalists, film makers, marketing experts, fashion designers, lighting and stage designers, gemologist etc as nursing students).
Unfortunately, nursing is now also oversubscribed.
Anyway, any ideas on how they can get a paying job in this environment.
