Nursing cutbacks

Absolutely, the job situation here in Northeast Florida is terrible, all the nurses I know are holding on to their jobs with both hands. Being sent home early or being canceled are very common., The general public thinks nursing jobs are all over the place, well they are dead wrong, at least in this part of the country.

I'm in the Bay area in CA and my traveling job/contract finished back in Dec. I started looking for a permanent job Jan 1st and I am still unemployed. I should have kept the traveling gig! I have 10 years of experience and my resume and everything else is impeccable. Even the hospitals that are hiring seem to be dragging their feet and taking their time.We're definitely feeling the effects of the economy out here. I never expected this as an RN...grumble grumble. Thank goodness I have some money saved up!

While they are still hiring around here a little, hospitals are pickier about their criteria. They want experienced nurses, certified in their specialty, etc. So things are definitely tightening.

Our facility hasn't done any lay-offs but we're desperately trying to get people to stop doing so much overtime. If they continue, there probably will come a day when we have to let people go. Census has been down, like everywhere else.

This is scary, and I don't get some of it. People don't stop needing medical care and being sick.....

With the down turn in the economy healthcare is affected as well. People who lose their health insurance will put off scheduling elective testing and procedures thus lowering the census and affecting staffing lvels.

We are noticing cuts/layoffs/no overtime/hiring freezes/wage freezes, etc in the midwest. Our census is way down too, presumably due to people putting off illnesses/surgeries unless it is very, very serious.

Here in Boston, some hospitals have laid off staff, though I'm not sure if that includes nurses. Others have hiring freezes. One system is closing a pedi unit (which was often closed due to lack of patients) at 1 hospital, an inpatient psych unit at another hospital, all inpatient units (but not the ER) at a third, and a bunch of outpatient clinics. No one is hiring new grads.

Florida....no overtime,low census days, on call instead of work, hiring freeze.If we do work someone is usually floated (I am on OB, most of us have not worked anywhere else for years, so we really feel lost) Staffing is cut so tight that it sometimes seems unsafe.

Our biggest money maker on our unit had been elective cosmetic surgeries....have not had any for 3 months.

In these last month they are finally hiring experienced nurses for urgently need positions, usually ICU or ER

Our unit is a small LDRP. Our census has been down for the last year and we have all been routinely put "on call" or "called off" in order to save the budget. We have all been using up our Pto time in order to get full pay checks. Now, most of our PTO is gone and we still are being put "on call". I routinely go without pay for 12-24 hours each pay period. It is quite worrisome to think about what the future holds.

We went through this throughout summer and early fall. Now it is our high season so at this time we all are working. Have to save up PTO as we all know once season is done most likely it will back to the frequent call offs. I hope to have at least 100 hours saved up in order to weather the down time, fingers crossed and only 30 more hours to save .lol... not funny really.

I am in the northeast and our census has been very high for a couple months. I get calls almost daily asking me to work extra. In the warmer months, our census drops considerably and we do get our shifts cut on a rotating basis. Then we are forced to use vacation or take it unpaid. I probably had 5 or 6 12 hour shifts cancelled last year.

I work in the SF Bay Area. I don't see travelers on my unit anymore, and our per diem nurses are no longer scheduled in advance. We have a "no cancel" policy in our contract, but staffing has been calling us to ask whether we'd be interested in taking a leave of absence or vacation day when the census is low. A lot of our support staff have been cut. We are not filling empty RN positions; instead management has eliminated them. Our unit hasn't hired a new grad in almost 2 years. We regularly run out of supplies now because management is under stocking to prevent waste and save money. I'm more than a little scared because I was one of the last hired to my unit, so if we start lay offs I'll be in the first wave to go. I feel very lucky to have a job right now. I do not envy the '09 nursing school graduates.