The media, some institutions of higher learning, and many members of the public heartily believe that the nursing profession is immune to economic downturns. Contrary to popular beliefs, nursing is quite vulnerable when economic times change for the worse. The intended purpose of this article is to dispel the popular myth that nursing is recession-proof.
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Contrary to widely held beliefs, nursing is certainly NOT the recession-proof career that many entities have seemingly made it out to be.
During the recession of the early 1990s, some nurses in certain regions of the United States had remained unemployed for six months or longer as they attempted to secure employment. Newly graduated nurses were hit the hardest, but many local employment markets were brutal toward the more experienced nurses, too. The severe nursing glut of the early 1990s had persisted well into the middle 1990s before easing sometime during the late 1990s.
During the Great Recession of the late 2000s, patients avoided having elective surgeries in droves because they were fearful of taking the time away from work that was needed for full recovery, which resulted in a low census on certain units in acute care hospitals. When the census is low at hospitals, fewer nurses are needed to keep these floors operational.
More people than usual become unemployed during sluggish economic times and, as a result, lose their health insurance benefits. Since healthcare is prohibitively expensive, uninsured people are definitely not inclined to seek it unless their health problems have progressed into unavoidable emergencies. In addition, the medical bills of uninsured patients tend to go unpaid, which means less cash flow for healthcare facilities. Numerous hospitals are providing plenty of charity care in this day and age.
Although it is an accurate statement that nursing jobs can never be outsourced, always remember that nurses can be "insourced" by recruiting foreign nurses to work at the most desperate hospitals in the U.S. In fact, a hospital in the desolate border town of Pecos, Texas, is currently willing to sponsor nurses from abroad. These nurses are less likely to whine about working evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays because they are earning more money in the U.S. than they ever would in their country of origin.
Masses of part-time nurses accept full-time positions during economic recessions to keep their households afloat when a breadwinner spouse loses his or her job without notice. Plenty of retired nurses have been reactivating their nursing licenses and since 2008, and are returning to the nursing workforce due to the escalating costs of food and fuel combined with the effects of retirement funds that have dwindled in value.
Another noteworthy issue is the aggressive expansion of nursing program slots over the past few years. Moreover, multiple new schools of nursing have opened their doors to willing applicants in recent years, especially at the private for-profit trade schools. These two factors have resulted in a recent increase in newly graduated nurses in local job markets. A significant number of these new nurses have grappled with unemployment and underemployment for more than one year because their local job markets cannot absorb them all.
The aforementioned ideas are just some food for thought. While these occurrences might not apply to your specific region or the part of the world where you live, these things are surely happening in many cities and towns across the United States.
