New Grad willing to take a pay cut for employment?

[kalevra, BSN, RN]

Reading through a bunch of new grad threads resulted in a few common ideas the most important in my opinion is the catch-22 idea that " we want to hire a nurse with experience, but no one is willing to give a new grad their shot at building acute care experience". This has caused a lot of frustrations with new grads trying to land their first gig. I know there are other issues at hand but I chose to focus on this one.

After reading "imported Care: Recruiting Foreign Nurses To U.S. Health Care Facilities Barbara L. Brush, Julie Sochalski and Anne M. Berger" http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/23/3/78.

The section "The Hiring Facilities" states that " Recruiting abroad may also be less costly than raising salaries, increasing benefits, and providing other economic incentives needed to retain domestic nurses". This leads me to believe that taking a pay cut as a New Grad RN would be actually beneficial. Before you tear me head off let me explain about my crazy theory.

Let us pretend the domestic RN gets paid $30.00 an hour. Whereas the foreign import gets paid $25.00 an hour. Let us also pretend everything else is equal benefits, experience, skill, professionalism, and so on. In the eyes of HR the edge between the two applicants would be with the foreign nurse. Based on simple cost effectiveness, you get the same work for less. The new grad would be locked out of the position and the foreign nurse would save th hospital a lot of money over time.

The Domestic new grad wont have their shot at building experience because they have been undercut. What about... now are you ready.... the domestic nurse takes a pay cut as well to even out the playing field, remove the edge from their competition. Now don't go off yelling yet give me a second, there is a method to my madness. You take a pay cut to make you more marketable, then you get that position, where you now have the chance to build that ever coveted new grad dream of their first "acute care job". Let us fast forward into the future let us say one year, i know it's not much time but just humor me.

You know apply for a position at another hospital and once again there are those new grads that just recently graduated. Let us also pretend the RNs with 15 years of experience didn't apply. It is you versus the new grads, but now you have an edge, now you have that time spent in acute care learning rather than been unemployed for months at a time. Now you don't have to take a pay cut, you have experience on your side.

Based on the model above does it make sense at all to take that initial hit in order to gain some experience? Or would it be better to apply and spend months unemployed?

I realize the model is simple, just wanted to see how everyone felt before other factors come into play.

[SweetheartRN]

In many RN postings I am seeing from hospitals, the base pay is already set and listed. So they see you a new grad applying and already know you would be receiving the base pay for that job no questions really asked. However, hospitals are still employing more experienced nurses who will have higher pay grades than what the base pay lists instead of opting for new grads because generally speaking they do not want to feel the immediate brunt of what it costs to train a new grad. Also many job postings I've seen flat out state only experienced RNs with more thatn 12 months acute care experience need apply.

[JustinAllen]

You leave out several important considerations in your reasoning:

1) Language barrier and the possibility of increased errors

2) Hospitals believe that if they can keep you for 3 years, they can keep you for life. There would be an increased training cost over a 10 years period using your theory vs the traditional one.

3) Changing the culture of the hospital. By this I don't mean foreign culture, but personnel culture. Being know as the hospital that has a lot of foreign nurses may / may not be a factor in your community. (sad but true)

4) I would like to believe that the training in the US is better than the rest of the world. Yes, everyone passes the same test, BUT I believe that our BSN programs SHOULD be better than the rest of the worlds programs. ( be gentle with me on this one:) )

[netglow, ASN, RN]

OK, so there is also the dirty reason why some hospitals staff with over 85% imports. The corporate administration likes certain cultural traits. The only way ANYBODY hires, is with the bottom line in mind. Hopefully you all took some intercultural/sociology classwork in college...

There is an inborn fear factor in people that just arrive from a foreign country that corporate likes to utilize and it is easy to begin to do stuff like increase ratios, lower pay and benefits, etc. Hey you can eliminate a foreign person with no regret, they are not going to start a union or go tell anyone about your bad practice.

Hey, and we thought that kind of thing was no longer cool in the US? Well, who works in the kitchens of most restaurants? Who does most of the grunt work in our nations farms? Who comes to cut your lawn or clean your house? Nursing is now often culturally staffed in the same way in many hospital systems and in most LTC in my area.

So you went to college to become an RN and you went to the best school, got 40-80 thousand in debt, were top of your class, got recs from Docs, nurses, instructors? Well you're not gonna get a job at one of the hospital systems in my area.

Lets just look at things as they are, can we?

[worked hard and long]

The NAFTA agreement has already made it easier to recruit foreign nurses. Chapter 19 adresess medical professionals like RN, OT, PT, RPH. They can come here perhaps with reciprocity from their country ( please correct me if I am wrong). The one thing as medical professionals we had on our side is that you can not move a hospital to a foreign country like a factory. And yes I too believe the language barrier may be problematic. One of the places I worked put their pay scale on an alphabetic coding system so nobody would know what the other is making. In that scenario introduce foreign nurses and it looks like it is a recipe for disaster. Does anybody know of foreign docs who could not pass their test and taking our jobs???

Perhaps the key word to recruit and retaining is the RETAINING! look at the model as a whole. If a nurse can clock out on time the budget will be better for everyone.:) They can go home to their family, :)the floors budget will be preserved, :)errors could be reduced,:) moral will go up and everyone will make a living wage. :)WE can then add to the stimulus of the economy.

Would you want a person with a problematic undertrained staff member care for you??

[gentlegiver, ASN, LPN, RN]

I'm not sure how all foreign Nurses live, but those who work in my faculity tend to rent an apartment together so thier cost of living is lessened and they can send more $$$ back to thier home country to help thier families. If we were to lower our payscale/benefits this would give corporations greater control over us. Imagine having to pay rent/mortages, food, auto ins., gas, utilities, health ins., child care (support), etc... and then add in your student loans. Then have your company inform you that they want to cut your pay back more or cut your benefits back due to costs or that they are unwilling to properly staff a unit? An action like lowering starting wages would also lower our standing (? wrong word?) with the company. They already see us as a cost, if they think they can fill our positions cheaper whats to keep them from firing us everytime a raise comes up and hiring someone at an even cheaper rate?

[eagle1970]

Taking a pay cut to make one more competitive is not good. It sets a precedent that you can work for cheap. It then becomes a race to the bottom.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

I understand what the OP is saying....they want a job...Ithink it is a sad statement on the job market, government, hospitals, insurance companies....just everyone! that an american citizen is willing to "lower" their expectations and work below the salary norm just to be employed. The importing of nurses has become standard and are generally sponsored by agencies that then "farm" them to the hospitals. They are cheaper, the wage offered is a lowered base from american grads (probably why at union facilities the presence of foreign staff is different) The hospital doesn't have to disclose what they are paying. The hospitals also appreciate imported nurses as the cultural differences are beneficial to the facilities in sick time taken and in tolerance to demands by the facility as many are supporting families back in their own countries.

I realize this a generalizing a topic and that there will be variations from place to place.......but the bottom line is true. US nurses are not being hired and are being replaced by imported labor.

I agree whole heartedly with onaclearday and worked hard and long........and eagle1970.......Taking a pay cut to make one more competitive is not good. It sets a precedent that you can work for cheap. It then becomes a race to the bottom.

[wishiwereanurse, BSN, RN]

It's funny how foreign nurses become easy target and seen as threat, when somewhere along these boards, foreign nurses are being told that there are no open visas to the US... Somehow y'all know there's a magic portal somewhere in this country where people can just come and take your jobs away...I wish you would share also where this portal is so I can call all my nurse friends so that they can come live and work in the United States...

[kalevra, BSN, RN]

I understand what the OP is saying....they want a job...Ithink it is a sad statement on the job market, government, hospitals, insurance companies....just everyone! that an american citizen is willing to "lower" their expectations and work below the salary norm just to be employed. The importing of nurses has become standard and are generally sponsored by agencies that then "farm" them to the hospitals. They are cheaper, the wage offered is a lowered base from american grads (probably why at union facilities the presence of foreign staff is different) The hospital doesn't have to disclose what they are paying. The hospitals also appreciate imported nurses as the cultural differences are beneficial to the facilities in sick time taken and in tolerance to demands by the facility as many are supporting families back in their own countries.

I realize this a generalizing a topic and that there will be variations from place to place.......but the bottom line is true. US nurses are not being hired and are being replaced by imported labor.

I agree whole heartedly with onaclearday and worked hard and long........and eagle1970.......Taking a pay cut to make one more competitive is not good. It sets a precedent that you can work for cheap. It then becomes a race to the bottom.

In my opinion I have always believed that homegrown American nurses are way better than any foreign nurse, just out of sheer pride...4 years service in the ARMY. The majority of you guys are saying no to taking a pay cut in order to land a job to get experience. But just to make it clear for everyone, I do not intend this pay cut to be a permanent deal. I was thinking a way to get your 1 or 2 years of acute care experience before moving on to a different location/position. At which point the New Grad would not have to worry about a lack of experience to get hired.

Since there are so many advantages for corporate to hire Foreign nurses my next question is, where do the unions stand on this whole importing in nurses taking American jobs?

Thanks for the input, it shed alot of light!

[kalevra, BSN, RN]

It's funny how foreign nurses become easy target and seen as threat, when somewhere along these boards, foreign nurses are being told that there are no open visas to the US... Somehow y'all know there's a magic portal somewhere in this country where people can just come and take your jobs away...I wish you would share also where this portal is so I can call all my nurse friends so that they can come live and work in the United States...

Well as recent as May 13 2011 there as a bill that would open 20,000 visas to foreign nurses. Ill attach a link to the bottom so you can read it.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1929ih/pdf/BILLS-112hr1929ih.pdf

So theoretically if all those visas get taken by foreign RNs that means 20,000 less jobs for Americans nurses looking for a job in these tough economic times. Just my

[kalevra, BSN, RN]

Hey, and we thought that kind of thing was no longer cool in the US? Well, who works in the kitchens of most restaurants? Who does most of the grunt work in our nations farms? Who comes to cut your lawn or clean your house? Nursing is now often culturally staffed in the same way in many hospital systems and in most LTC in my area.

So you went to college to become an RN and you went to the best school, got 40-80 thousand in debt, were top of your class, got recs from Docs, nurses, instructors? Well you're not gonna get a job at one of the hospital systems in my area.

Lets just look at things as they are, can we?

Kinda hurts equating RNs to cooks, and gardeners but I do get your point.