question regarding nursing pay

I am pretty sure you get paid for the amount of hours you put in. They are not salaried positions.

The actual hours worked.

Ditto what everyone else said, but if you're on a floor/unit, all where they encourage you all to fill the schedule holes, or have some kind of shift plus, 4 more hours a week may be possible.

Ditto what everyone else said, but if you're on a floor/unit, all where they encourage you all to fill the schedule holes, or have some kind of shift plus, 4 more hours a week may be possible.

This sucks...puts me at making a little over 35K when I graduate (if I can get a job at one of the larger hospitals, which aren't hiring right now), and people say there is money in nursing. Even APN's only start in the low 70's in my market.

This sucks...puts me at making a little over 35K when I graduate (if I can get a job at one of the larger hospitals, which aren't hiring right now), and people say there is money in nursing. Even APN's only start in the low 70's in my market.

Yeah, but it still beats working at Wendy's:yeah:

Did you include the shift differentials in your calculations? They can add a lot to the total pay sometimes. A lot of hospitals have low base pay -- but pay generous shift differentials for evening, night, and/or weekend hours.

No, but as a single parent and no family in town, working nights and weekends is not a good option for me.

Back in the day, when RN's were "in demand", some hospitals used to pay for 40 even though you only worked 36. But, not today, with the economy the way it is. They also used to have something called a "sign-on bonus", too!!!

The RN's in our local hospital went on strike about 3 years ago, one of the big sticking points was the fact that they had been paid for 40 hours when they worked 36. The hospital wanted to change that, saying that they did that when the hospital was making more money, but now they had to stop doing it. The nurses were saying that the hospital was "cutting their pay". I am still in school, so I can't say 100%, but I believe in the end the 40 for 36 thing came to an end.

In my institution, 37.5 hours is considered a full work week. Anything worked in excess of that is paid at time and a half (overtime).

The French have been wrestling with this "what is a work week" issue for years, at last count, scuttling their traditional 35 Hour work week as being too expensive to maintain. So in essence, your employer has to decide the number of hours that it finds most advantageous towards productivity versus employee satisfaction and retention. World wide, most weekly hours range between 35 to 45 hours per week, with 2-5 weeks annual holiday.