Nursing Surplus?

RNperdiem, RN · Jul 7, 2007

I remember the mid-90's as well. Many hospitals would not hire new graduates. They saved money by having little or no nursing education department. Since there was not a shortage, why spend more to train and orient a new grad?

Baylor and other weekend pay plans were disappearing.

Breaking into OR or ICU could be difficult for a nurse without specific experience.

ASSEDO · Jul 9, 2007

I live in an area where there is a surplus of nursing schools plus a surplus of nurses. This is promoted by hospitals in the area, to keep salaries and benefits low.

I wonder why hospitals can't pay moving expenses for nurses, like in other professions???

allnurses Guide · Jul 9, 2007

I live in an area where there is a surplus of nursing schools plus a surplus of nurses. This is promoted by hospitals in the area, to keep salaries and benefits low.
I wonder why hospitals can't pay moving expenses for nurses, like in other professions???

Some hospitals do, I believe. Aren't there hospitals that advertise in nursing magazines and such, that they will pay your moving expenses if you come and work for them? Plus, some hospitals offer huge sign-on bonuses, and some of those bonuses would probably more than take care of moving expenses.

MrsMommaRN · Jul 9, 2007

no one shoot me here but, what about the hospitals that are recruting the nurses from overseas and paying them lower wages, just so they can fill in where help is needed?

there is a local hospital that does this helps and helps them aquire thier visas as well. how is this a way to save money when the hospital pays for moving expenses?

fronkey bean · Jul 9, 2007

no one shoot me here but, what about the hospitals that are recruting the nurses from overseas and paying them lower wages, just so they can fill in where help is needed?
there is a local hospital that does this helps and helps them aquire thier visas as well. how is this a way to save money when the hospital pays for moving expenses?

over the long run they will spend less than a $75/hr traveler.

Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN · Jul 10, 2007

There is a big surplus wherre I live- in the Texas panhandle, Jobs are scarce here. Every single nurse I've know from this area has become a traveler.

As I've posted many times here, the Dept of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics says there is no nursing shortage in the US at all. According to the DOL paper I read, there are 100,000 more RNs living in the US right now than there are jobs for.

The Bureau says more study is needed to find out why these nurses are not working in nursing. But, I think we know the reasons.

Here are some articles which question whether or not there really is a nursing shortage:

http://www.nurse-recruiter.com/articles/misc/nursing_shortage_is_there_one.html

http://www.americanreformation.org/policy/Immigration/H1BVisas/Nursingshortage.htm

"I think it's important to question whether there really is a nursing shortage," said Liz Jacobs, RN, communications department, California Nurses Association.

"The nurses are out there," CNA's Jacobs said. However, she said they don't want to work in hospital settings. Jacobs said that 33 percent of California's nurses work part time, about 40 percent work in nondirect care and 17 percent aren't practicing nursing. "If you put all that together, there's a pool of many nurses to draw from."

http://www.nurseweek.com/news/features/01-08/critical.html

Don’t let them fool you. There is no nursing shortage in America. Two million plus nurses is NOT a shortage. There is however, is a shortage of nurses willing to work under the conditions currently being offered by the hospital/healthcare industry/corporations. Nurses joke about it, “Yeah, yeah, lots of nursing jobs are out there. Trouble is they’re all basically the same crappy one!”

http://houseoflabor.tpmcafe.com/blog/kkny/2006/oct/23/there_is_no_nursing_shortage

Nurses leaving to go into pharmaceutical industry, says MedZilla expert

Marysville, WA - February 26, 2002 - Frank Heasley, PhD, President and CEO of Medzilla.com, says that he has never seen so many nurses posting for pharmaceutical sales positions. According to Dr. Heasley, there have been days during the last three or four months when half the nurses coming to the site were looking for jobs as pharmaceutical sales representatives.

MedZilla, founded in 1994, is a leading Internet recruitment and professional community that targets jobseekers and HR professionals in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and science. Each month about 24,000 nurses visit MedZilla.com to post resumes and conduct job searches. Overall, Dr. Heasley says that more than one-quarter of the nurses who come to the site monthly are seeking pharmaceutical sales positions.

http://www.medzilla.com/pressfeb02.html

fronkey bean · Jul 10, 2007

they can call it what they want to there are not enough WORKING nurses in the US and that is a shortage.

EmmaG, RN · Jul 10, 2007

Was there something special about 1995 that caused the cutbacks?

Wasn't that when the Republicans took over Congress? :smiley_ab

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3655/is_200310/ai_n9262306/pg_15

http://www.futurehealth.ucsf.edu/compubs.html

Perhaps hospitals (and hospital corps) reacted with a knee-jerk response to what they saw as stricter Medicare/Medicaid regulations, budget cuts, etc., coming down the pike.

But then again, I could be wrong LOL.

It's late... I can't sleep... what can I say...

llg, PhD, RN · Jul 10, 2007

There was a surplus in Chicago in the early 80's. There were waiting lists of 3-6 months for new grads to get jobs in the NICU where I worked at the time.

Where I work now, we had no vacancies in 1998 for a while -- and very few vacancies in the years leading up to that.

Most of the previous cycles of shortage/surplus were diffent than the shortage we are heading into. Most of the previous nursing supply swings were the result of short-term (and sometimes local) economic factors. The difference with the shortage we are now entering is that there is a larger, underlying population shift that is ocurring in society that will have a huge impact.

The baby-boomers represent a significant portion of the population (the pig in the python metaphor). As that generation retires, the ratio of the number of workers to the number of retirees with shrink. In other words, society will be composed of a higher percentage of elderly people and a smaller percentage of younger people. Older people tend not to work physically demanding jobs -- which will dramatically reduce the percentage of the population who might even consider working as a bedside nurse. Making it worse, older people need more health care, straining both our human resource and financial resource.

It's a "perfect storm" scenario. As our society will need more of its resources to take care of all the older people's health needs ... there will be fewer younger health workers to meet those needs. Thus, all the talk about how this is not just a short-term swing of the pendulum.

jjjoy, LPN · Jul 10, 2007

I would think a bigger issue than the NUMBER of health personnel that will be needed as the population ages, would be the AFFORDABILITY and PAY of those needed health positions. I'd think we could ramp up education and train up the needed number of personnel, but we can't KEEP them in the needed capacity unless the pay and work conditions are attractive.

Most of the aging population won't be able to pay the kind of wages for nursing services that would be competitive for other jobs. I imagine foreign laborers would be the most popular solution as the foreign laborer would have the opportunity to make good wages compared to what they'd make at home and the cost would be more affordable to seniors on a limited income. I see this possibility especially likely for ADL assistance which traditionally pays quite low. How else can we make ADL assistance affordable to seniors of limited means? Perhaps encourage students to do this kind of work while in school? Subsidies for such costs to make the pay more attractive while keeping costs low for the elderly?

I'm not sure how the demand for more highly skilled labor will pan out. Perhaps a continuation of what's been happening. Decent pay but poor work conditions (short staffing, etc) such that it's not worth it for local nurses to make the sacrafice to work under such conditions, whereas it IS worth it for some foreign nurses, because the pay differential is much higher compared to their alternatives and the work conditions might still seem good compared to other alternatives.

I'd hope, though, that we could find a way to be able to provide our own skilled labor force and to provide pay and work conditions that are attractive to local personnel. That does mean a major investment in training as well as at least somewhat higher costs to maintain an attractive work environment and competitive pay.

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Jul 10, 2007

there is a surplus of nurses now actually

just not a surplus of nuses working presently

48RVRN · Jul 10, 2007

there is a surplus of nurses now actually
just not a surplus of nuses working presently

Oh, so true! Last estimate I saw was that 1 in 4 new nurses quit the field in the first 5 years.