When I first entered nursing school in 2008, the hype here in california about nurses being in such a high demand seemed to be at question. Contributing factors that brought this into question was the economic decline, lack of jobs, lack of hiring for new grads, and other factors. Fast foward to 2011, many of these factors have become a fact, the jobs for new grads here in california are in dire shortage, very difficult to obtain, and new grads can expect to hunt around for a year + easy if not more. Older aged nurses are not retiring due to economic instability, hospitals are just as tight as corporations for hiring and training, although one thing doesnt seem to have changed, and thats the number of nursing students. From personal observation of the years, one will often here from someone on the street, " oh your going into nursing, theres always work there, tons of jobs you'll be good". Additionally, I've noticed these new private colleges which are rapidly growing, all they require is you go into debt, and since people are desperate for a career, this is in my opinion attracting the wrong kind of nurses. Because of the long waiting lists at community colleges, often individuals are taking the debt to degree route, when looking at this in a bigger picture think back to the housing boom 2005....what is it we are seeing? Tons of individuals moving into real estate, hearing of great compensation, easy credit, easy this, easy that.
Personally, while I understand we have an influx of baby boomer patients who are aging, what happens lets say around 2020, when you have all these nurses, and buisness slows down....a bubble begins to burst. It does scare me to think about the fact that nursing is now becoming a buisness, and a buisness I believe for the wrong reasons. Everywhere I go, resturant, bar, park, public place, its all to often I hear someone say, im in nursing school, im going to be a nurse. Now, what im not saying is im passing judgement, because i dont know these people so I dont know what kind of person they are so thats not my job. However, Im just seeing alot of factors here, and things just arent adding up, It's not making any sense. While I just graduated in june, and now im studying for boards, even friends of mine who graduated in 2010 are still presently not hired, looking for work, even grads from 2009 can said to be in the same position. At this point I feel its best to diversify my career outlook, based on my personal intuition that this is gonna be a problem 15-20 years down the road, and we should'nt put all our chips in one basket for a career *as if the last few years havent taught us anything*. However, dont get me wrong, nursing is my passion, my life, and it always has been since I was medically discharged from the navy in 2003, it has taken me years to get to this point and it was and always has been a calling. Although, I wonder if the person who is sitting down at home thinking about going to nursing is really seeing this at all as I am given the new prespective I have on the entire industry. Any thoughts? :)
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
I don't really worry that nursing is attracting the wrong kind of people, but I do not believe there is a shortage, an impending crisis right around the corner or any other of the doomsday scenarios certain groups have a death grip on at the moment.
The problem is that the doomsday predictors are normally those who have a well-honed ability to get their issues out to the public, and make sure that when someone is writing for the lay public an article about nursing, the people in their Rolodex are those who have a 99% chance of saying there is an impending crisis of epic proportions, so that's what most in the general population believes to be true. Which isn't a huge stretch because at one time there really was a shortage.
Now the student pipelines are primed to churn out large numbers of new graduates still operating on the assumption jobs are plentiful. I notice there are increasing numbers of people who are not hired for up to a year after they graduate, assuming they hang in there with no income and looming loan payments.
At the very least extending the time one has before the first payment is due would be the humane thing to do. They're based on the assumption a new grad is hired right away and has a 9 month cushion of employment when now it seems people are actually lucky to land a job at all in the first 9 months after graduation.
I've read new nurses in CA have trouble getting work and university was even considering offering upaid? internships to keep their skills up. Have you heard of this?
I'm surprised because CA has the new nurse staffing ratios so I would think they would have plenty of openings.
Is it because everybody loves the climate there and the ocean?
Wouldn't want to go there, cost of living too high, earthquakes, drought, mudslides, not too mention expensive utilities, remember when Enron was causing forced outages and jacking the price of electricity thru the roof. Not to mention the state is practically bankrupt now.
The posts on here are funny. One says there IS a nursing shortage, the next one says there ISN'T a nursing shortage. I am still of the belief that it is a regional thing.
I moved a year ago from the midwest, where the towns are small and rural and there are more nurses and nursing programs than there are nursing jobs, so no shortage there.
I now live in Texas, in a rural area/border area and the hospitals are offerring $24,000 hiring bonuses! Yes, I said 24,000, as in 24K. I thought the bonus thing was over a long time ago! That was because I was looking at it from the view of a small midwestern town perspective.
I work for some national companies that I absolutely LOVE! They are so short of nurses that they are offerring referral bonuses. This allowed me to move from the midwest to the south and keep the jobs. I can work anywhere I want. I tried to help everyone out once by saying the names of the companies but AN pulled my post. I think it was illegal because I wanted to tell you what the company was, but I wanted the referral bonus! Hey, can't blame a gal for trying! I have been afraid to re-list the names of the companies even without asking for the referral bonus because I don't want the AN gods to kick me off for making them mad.
Anyway, I have no idea what the future will hold. Just telling what I have/am observing.
I think the problem is that people went into nursing school thinking employers were going to be fighting over them when they graduated. The truth is this economy is tough and the golden days of nurses being a hot commodity are over. You have to compare the job market against other college graduates now not against nursing majors of the past. It may be harder to find a job than ever before but nursing as a whole still offers way more opportunity to find that job than 90 percent of other degrees out there. New grads can feel confident that they will eventually find a job even if it takes a year and a thousand applications. Do you think poli sci, english, or any other liberal arts major feels as confident? My point is it may not be great but heck it could be allot worse.
I hear what you are saying and I really don't believe in a shortage at all... I think the location you are talking about has alot to do with shortage and referral bonuses.... Although , I do know of a hospital not anywhere near the border looking for experienced OR nurses paying a large bonus too..
I have also considered the scenario you've thought about. Just in case, I think it's important to at least get a BSN. I have just graduated with my ADN, and the last thing I want to do is school right now, but I'm signed up for non-nursing BSN requirements this fall. My goal is to be a nurse practitioner, so I'd need my BSN anyway, but my thought process has changed as to the urgency of continuing with school.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
I've read new nurses in CA have trouble getting work and university was even considering offering upaid? internships to keep their skills up. Have you heard of this?
I'm not aware of anything that would be connected to the state government or university system that affect hiring of new grads because they graduated from a school located in California.
I'm surprised because CA has the new nurse staffing ratios so I would think they would have plenty of openings.
Is it because everybody loves the climate there and the ocean?
Wouldn't want to go there, cost of living too high, earthquakes, drought, mudslides, not too mention expensive utilities, remember when Enron was causing forced outages and jacking the price of electricity thru the roof. Not to mention the state is practically bankrupt now.
The chance of any one individual experiencing a devastating mudslide or earthquake in Californis is very low. Water conservation is a constant issue with drought/rainfall issues best looked at on a county by county basis, just as the cost of living should be. Higher wages tend to track pretty well with cost-of-living.
During the year 2000 energy crisis we had several days of "rolling blackouts" but no widespread outages. The price-gouging was not directly passed on to consumers in the form of an individual's monthly bill being jacked up through the roof and the state and Enron entered into a settlement agreement with California and two other western states in 2005 to pay back the charges of price gouging between the states and Enron.
Not trying to convince anyone to move to California but wanted to clarify for those who may be considering it.
would the navy consider you for rehire as you now have a different education to offer your services in?
are you willing to move to a different location/part/state of the country?
when i graduated from nursing school n 1984 , the same was happening in nursing then... except DRG's where the reason....
now it is obama care and the insurance industry stuff........
cant say i can predict where it is going.....but as i tell my kids, no computer can wipe an orifice, or hold a vomit bucket..EVER...and since the country has tried importing nurses but the patients DEMAND some one who speaks UNDERSTANDABLE ENGLISH, that wont do either.....
i highly recommend PRAYER.........if yah feel and were called, the one who called you will place you where He wants you....... :)
My current employer has created a unique nursing shortage with a series of decisions based on short term goals. How did they do this?
1. When census dropped last spring and again this spring, administration began releasing nurses and others from their positions. An environment has been created, intentionally or unintentionally, where workers are not certain about their employment status. Many nurses have been pragmatic about it, and are just waiting and watching for an opportunity to leave. So though administration will probably never recognize that the decision making of the past has led to the best nurses leaving in a constant trickling stream, it is in fact what is happening. What will it take for the administration to repair the loss of good will? It is hard to define the impact of this loss; and hard to imagine how they will shift the perception.
2. Now that the census has popped up again, as it did last summer, the hospital is short nurses on a daily and nightly basis. The new business development staff did a good job in bringing more physicians to the hospital. More physicians has come to equal more patients. The plan that was communicated by the CEO was when the census was consistently high there would be more money to to hire more nurses and nurses aides. In the meantime those pragmatic nurses (see above) are tired of working short handed every day. There are positions posted... don't see many new faces or new names pencilled in on schedules.
3. The float pool was fired the first spring, and the new per diem program is not providing enough help to make up for the loss of those nurses. To top it off, administration has decided to cut back on paying bonus for extra shifts to regular staff. The new bonus policy reads wonky, and if it is anything like the last bonus policy will be misinterpreted, or at the very least interpreted differently by everyone who okays bonus pay. The current staff begrudges the administration the loss of the bonus pay opportunity. It was one of the factors that made working at this hospital tolerable on a long term basis. It adds to the nightly/daily shortage. The new bonus policy takes affect in a couple weeks. Still on the old bonus policy, nurses have come in for extra shifts after being told they would be paid bonus only to have a director deny paying it after the shift was worked, stating it had not been properly approved. More good will and trust.... going... going.... gone.
4. Administration seems to think it is easy to hire and orient new nurses. Well, because of their new policies in the last three years, new grads can now only be hired through the residency program and must have a BSN. So those new grad nurses can only be brought in 2 or 3 times a year. Experienced nurses in the local area have the scoop on what happens within the four walls, in part because the per diem nurses go back to where they work full time and tell everyone they know how poorly staffed we are, how poor the communication is, etc. So the per diem program is actually a tool for spreading the word of our nightmare out to the general nursing community in our area. It is going to be tough to lure experienced nurses away from other institutions with all this "free" advertising. (And I will just barely mention, that though they will now only hire new grads with BSNs, they have had to place people with ADNs in charge nurse roles despite a BSN listed as a requirement. And no... not every ADN in the charge nurse role is working on their BSN nor are they being pressured to do so. And there are BSNs as directors despite the MSN listed as a requirement. And no... not every BSN in the director role is working on their MSN or being pressured to do so.)
5. Administration and staffing think it is appropriate to guilt nurses into working extra... "Help your co-workers, don't make them work short handed...." or "Let's take care of our patients, please call if you can work..." This tactic hand in hand with the administration basically cutting bonus pay out of the equation only serves to infuriate. Individuals think and say, "well I worked short the last three nights, my director knew and basically said tough luck." How about that the director and administration consider that the full level of staffing for a unit is based 80% of beds with butts in them (their phraseology, not mine), but it has actually been 95-100% for weeks. Directors seem unwilling or unable to then anticipate upcoming shortages and staff for them? It is an insult to staff for management to be so budget blind that they will not stand up to have the unit staffed to previously agreed upon guidelines. If you agreed 4:1 was appropriate staffing before, why is it not now? Or is it just not worth paying bonus for? Though you would pay a per diem nurse, if she/he were available, an hourly wage that equates out to a staff nurse getting bonus and overtime? Who is doing the math in Oz?
Time. Time will tell how this shortage is resolved. It is going to get a lot worse before it gets better as the policies created only serve as barriers to solving the short term crisis. The lack of trust between administration and staff is a huge elephant in the room that administration can't even see yet and will affect long term resolution of staffing issues in general.
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
i tend to disagree about things cycling back the other way to there being plentiful jobs even for new grads.
just way too many out there with licenses that were unable to find nursing jobs for the past two years, and more pumping out of every dark corner twice a year. these schools are gonna keep pushing and people are going to keep buying into the job availability myth for many many years to come. if suddenly people realize the "shortage" is a scam and enrollment slows, that won't cause any dip in the availability of nurses out there who can just refresh if they were forced to leave for other employment due to being unable to find work as new nurses. also the late 90's produced some pretty solid pipelines to the [color=#0000cc]philippines and many large networks like the cost savings of online ordering. they lobby congress to loosen the constraints that are in place at this time. people who hire nurses won't feel any kind of desperation for locating nurses ever again.
i agree that in the eighties there was not the importing of foreign nurses and the closing of so many facilities. but i still beleive eventually the "boomers" will get to old to work or we will just plain die off....and we are a huge hunk. i htink it will return but hyou ar eright ....it won't be on the scale it was when you could taylor you job to you.....sad....
Many RN's like myself have no money to retire on so don't count on us leaving the workforce.
Also tptb will simply import ready made nurses as they have done twice before. Plus much of bedside care has become so expensive that the work is going to UAP's or becoming more automated. The few new grads hired today will be burned out and ready for a new career in 2 to 7 yrs due to the overwork forced on us by hospitals.
nursel56
7,122 Posts
I don't really worry that nursing is attracting the wrong kind of people, but I do not believe there is a shortage, an impending crisis right around the corner or any other of the doomsday scenarios certain groups have a death grip on at the moment.
The problem is that the doomsday predictors are normally those who have a well-honed ability to get their issues out to the public, and make sure that when someone is writing for the lay public an article about nursing, the people in their Rolodex are those who have a 99% chance of saying there is an impending crisis of epic proportions, so that's what most in the general population believes to be true. Which isn't a huge stretch because at one time there really was a shortage.
Now the student pipelines are primed to churn out large numbers of new graduates still operating on the assumption jobs are plentiful. I notice there are increasing numbers of people who are not hired for up to a year after they graduate, assuming they hang in there with no income and looming loan payments.
At the very least extending the time one has before the first payment is due would be the humane thing to do. They're based on the assumption a new grad is hired right away and has a 9 month cushion of employment when now it seems people are actually lucky to land a job at all in the first 9 months after graduation.