Looking into moving to Victoria

Fiona59 · Jul 25, 2013

Never say never but be prepared to be casual for a long time or wind up working in LTC.

A coworker moved back home to Victoria (educated there). It took her nearly a year to find a permanent part time job and she has experience in a specialty.

When I lived on the Island, it took me nearly 8 months to find a casual job.

Remember there are several nursing schools on the Island and more on the mainland. I saw that they hired locals first no matter what your experience was.

frances81 · Aug 14, 2013

I wouldn't count on it. I graduated from UVIC this past spring and still haven't gotten in with VIHA. They're bumping RN lines and hiring RCA's and LPN's at the moment. They only hired 40-50% of new grads for the New Grad Positions this year, down from 100% last year. I've talked to a lot of people who are moving away or working in the private sector, mostly LTC. That's what I'm in, but it's only casual and not many shifts-very stressful considering I'm desperately broke :S

I've started applying to the interior and to AB and SK even. At least when I do, I actually get responses from HR offering to help me with my job search. Here I feel like all my applications disappear into the ether. VIHA's also known for being painfully slow and back logged. Just today at my LTC job I was speaking with a nurse who took 3 years to break into VIHA :S Scary.

joanna73, BSN, RN · Aug 14, 2013

One of my coworkers (I'm in AB) is from BC. Apparently, the market is terrible with the exception of small Northern towns. Same story everywhere at the moment. Health care is being revolutionized, and not in a positive sense. They are all looking to cut back, despite the fact that we should continue to invest in health care.

The powers that be, including Steve Harper are concerned with filling their pockets at the expense of the majority.