Pay in Austin, TX (1 yr experience RN)

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Hello!

Im an RN moving from New Orleans, LA to Austin at the end of this year. I am starting to look through job openings and was wondering what kind of base pay I can expect. I have a BSN and 1 year of experience working on a Cardiac Step-Down unit.

Thanks!!

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Although I can not comment on pay at 1 year experience, I can on starting pay. Austin, for some reason, pays quite a bit lower than areas like Dallas and Houston and unfortunately the cost of living there is quite high compared. People I was in school with were being offered $22-$23 per hour starting - many of those were ICU jobs. I can not comment on differential though.

Best of luck.

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With one year experience, you should maybe consider travel nursing to the area you want, before committing. The pay would be a lot better. And you can figure out where u might want to plant roots. Good luck!

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

PP is correct about salaries. Just like everywhere else, nursing salaries in our state are largely a result of supply & demand. Everyone and their Great Aunt Sally wants to move to Austin, so that area has an abundance of nurses (and other professions as well) which drives down salaries. Most of the time, Houston metro and DFW are #'s 1 & 2, salary-wise. These two areas remain in continuous growth-mode, so it probably isn't going to change very much in the near future.

Honestly, I don't really see the appeal of Austin. Waaaay too many politicians & newcomers who mostly just complain about anything and everything in Texas.

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Honestly, I don't really see the appeal of Austin. Waaaay too many politicians & newcomers who mostly just complain about anything and everything in Texas.

Me either.

There are some pretty areas around there, but many other parts of Texas are too.

For some reason it is a liberal pocket in a conservative state.

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Hi I just moved to Austin with two years experience Med/Surg (heavy on the Surg) and an Associate's degree in Nursing (with a non nursing BA) and I started applying for jobs 4 days ago and already have 3 interviews! Looks like everyone is looking to staff their night shifts here. At Seton they offered me $27.62/hr plus $4/hr diff for nights and Maxim Staffing found me a 13 week contract at $35/hr (also nights). Have not been made offers for the 2 St David's positions but can update when I find out. You can live here with roommates fairly affordably or if you don't care about being in the center of town. I expect I'll be shelling out about $1000/month to live alone where I want (it's still a huge bargain compared to where I lived before!).

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Thanks everyone for your help, all much appreciated!

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Update: Just accepted a job with St David's in a clinic and they offered me $29.40/hr. For the St David's night shift med surg jobs I was offered about $27/hr with a small shift diff (like $2-$3) plus sign on bonus of $3,500. Austin is growing so fast they seem to be in desperate need of nurses. I've turned down more jobs here than I was ever offered in New York.

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Specializes in Tele, Interventional Pain Management, OR.
Update: Just accepted a job with St David's in a clinic and they offered me $29.40/hr. For the St David's night shift med surg jobs I was offered about $27/hr with a small shift diff (like $2-$3) plus sign on bonus of $3,500. Austin is growing so fast they seem to be in desperate need of nurses. I've turned down more jobs here than I was ever offered in New York.

Austin desperately needs experienced nurses, but even new grads shouldn't have much difficulty landing jobs. New grads should be prepared for relatively low pay, though--the two major hospital systems offer $22-$24 hourly base for new grads regardless of specialty. Both systems do offer nurse residency programs though.

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