OMG! Is it true that it's hard to find a job as a RN now?? Even in NY?!

LittleLRN · Nov 27, 2009

Unfortunately it is true, I know of ppl that graduated in the beginning of Jan that still are looking for jobs.

akanini, MSN, RN · Nov 29, 2009

It is soooo true. I guess we have too many Rns here in NY. I strongly believe that the shortage is based on where you live.

Music in My Heart · Nov 29, 2009

It's not just NY. It includes (at least) CA, OR, and WA.

Supposedly there are new-grad jobs aplenty in TX and in Detroit... supposedly.

cracksbacks · Nov 30, 2009

I passed my NCLEX in September. I have been looking with not even an interview so far. Fortunately I have a career as a chiropractor to fall back on but it is very frustrating that all the work I put in to get my RN degree has been for naught thus far.

Back2Nursing09 · Dec 1, 2009

Wow.I can't believe it.I remember hearing jokes about new grads being hired right on the spot because there were so many job openings.Nursing as always been my plan since my 1st year of college,but since I didn't get into one of the very competitive Nursing programs,I switched my major to Liberal Arts.I guess I'll have to reconsider my career choice.I want to be able to work right after graduation if thats even possible with any career lol.

cracksbacks · Dec 1, 2009

in NY we had two hospitals close last year and it flooded the market with experienced RNs. It made things more tough than it already was. Combine that with a bad economy and you have a tight market.

Bobbkat · Dec 3, 2009

I'm from Detroit and happened to pop my head in on this board to see if there any jobs in NY. There are a jobs in Detroit if you have experience, depending on which hospital you are checking out, none if you are a new grad though. Everyone went on a hiring freeze over a year ago, and while some of them are over, some are still frozen. We tanked when the auto industry tanked back in 07.

caffeineRx · Dec 3, 2009

Yes, and unfortunately, NY also brings in a LOT of foreign nurses. So much for those of us who are from here. We are suffering just as much as the rest of the country.

Emergency RN · Dec 6, 2009

Actually, there are plenty of jobs in the NY area, except no one's hiring. Most places have a hiring freeze going on (fallout from the bad economy) and any positions that become available usually goes to the applicant with the most experience. And like someone else alluded to, the closing of Mary Immaculate and St John's of Queens early this year put more than 2500 people out of work, the bulk of them nurses. My institution actually picked up a few of them.

Yes, and unfortunately, NY also brings in a LOT of foreign nurses. So much for those of us who are from here. We are suffering just as much as the rest of the country.

As for the hiring of foreign nurses, I don't think New York is really doing much of that anymore. In order for an institution to be authorized by the US Congress to sponsor foreign nationals (ie the H1 Visa), they have to prove that there is a critical shortage in a job skill that cannot be met, nor will not be met for the foreseeable future by local employable skilled assets. That is clearly not the case in New York. So I don't know about other states, but in New York, foreign nurses are definitely not competing for American jobs.

DoGoodThenGo · Dec 6, 2009

As with most every other sort of employment, everybody wants to work/live in NYC, this means hospitals here can (and do) hire not only local grads/RNs, but can pick and choose from all over the United States. Add to this the number of graduate nurses being churned out every six or twelve months (whom nobody seems to hire or only a select few), and you have quite allot of nurses out there chasing slim openings. Many new grads entered school when the noise about the "nursing shortage" was at it's loudest and yes, probably heard or saw their upper-classmen nab jobs even before their pinning ceremony. That has come to an sudden halt.

Consider also hospitals and healthcare networks in New York State, and New York City are for the most part going through a painful bloodbath as they try to adjust to the new health care landscape. NYS/NYS is the most expensive place in the United States to build and operate a hospital (no surprise to those of us who live here), and a recent state report made it clear there were too many hospitals chasing to few patients, and wanted closures.

What the state did not do, the market did on it's own. As noted by other posters, there have been many hospital closures and mergers both state-wide and within NYC. Each time this happens huge numbers of experienced RNs are thrown out into the work force to fend for themselves.

Because of the high cost of living in NYS and NYC, the turnover in nurses is not what one would expect. Nurses who marry and or have babies often must still work because quite frankly it takes two incomes to barely make middle class living here.

The only hospital one has heard of hiring large numbers of nurses in NYC, is Richmond County Medical Centre (formerly Saint Vincent's Hospital/Medical Centre) and it's sister institution Bailey Seton out in Staten Island. Both have just come out of a really bad times and were sold off from the Catholic Church and merged with Bayonne Medical Centre. According to a news report in our local paper (Staten Island Advance), RCMC recently hired about 85 new nurses.