So you want to move to Alberta for a job

Trishrpn80 · Sep 24, 2013

Wow.. Tough times...

aywl · Sep 24, 2013

here's the latest:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/new-nurses-struggle-to-find-jobs-in-alberta-union-says-1.1864471
It's true. Try finding a full time line, there just aren't that many around. It's the same for new grad LPNs. Most wind up working as casuals. Yes, they can get lots of shifts but they can't get lines.

In our unit, no matter who you are, lpn／rn/ na, casual or part time employee, every month only have 1 to 2 shifts to pick up

PNStudent18 · Sep 24, 2013

I hope when I finish school things will be different, in five years.

Novo · Sep 24, 2013

I hear Saskatchewan is hiring.

tokidoki7, ASN, RN · Oct 1, 2013

Oh wow.

tokidoki7, ASN, RN · Oct 1, 2013

I'm getting confused. Nurses are being laid off, new nurses are unable to find employment and nursing assistants are taking over in Alberta. However, nurses in New Brunswick are heading over to Alberta for employment? Alberta jobs attracting New Brunswick nurses | Globalnews.ca

This is disturbing on so many levels. I was going to make my move to Edmonton in late December, but since the job market is so tight, I will have to change my plans. It seems like a waste of money to renew my LPN license.

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Oct 1, 2013

There's so much missing from that Global story. I just looked at the AHS careers board and could find only 5 postings specifically for new RN grads... 1 regular full time, 2 temporary part time (0.52 and 0.53) and 2 casuals - for the whole province. In the Registered Nurse/Registered Psychiatric Nurse category there are 300 postings... but most of them are part time, (short-term) temporary or are for specialty units. In the LPN category there are 66 postings, again many for part time, temporary positions. My unit has hired 2 nurses from New Brunswick and a couple from Ontario this year, mainly because there have been no other applicants. And I see that there are 13 more RN postings up for my unit, even though our management keeps saying we're fully staffed. It's confusing, even to those of us on the inside.

PNStudent18 · Oct 1, 2013

Have seen articles often claiming there's a shortage of nurses. Although it's quite the opposite in most places. It's annoying.

Fiona59 · Oct 1, 2013

Jan, what is bothering my coworkers is the never ending revolving door of new hire casuals.

I understand going casual to get that first job. That's how I started back when it was Capital Health. But I stayed for a year, I worked shifts, I learned to work by myself with five orientation shifts.

Now the new grads are expecting months of orientations, only want M-F and have more "not available" more days than they are available. They are "stressed" by working more than two 8s in a row. I don't work on a critical care unit, I think there has been one death on my unit in the last decade.

It's getting to the point where we don't want to do any more orientations to the unit. We are handholding the new hires until it is painful. We'd rather they just increase the part time FTEs!

SurroDoula · Oct 2, 2013

I'm currently working on a paper regarding the whole workplace transformation that's going on in AHS. In some of their areas of their documents they are saying that if they are able to increase the FTE average to around 0.8 then they will no longer be short staffed anywhere. Yet in other areas they are still going on about how they will need to train 2000 new nurses a year and will hire 70% of new grads.

I'm frustrated. I don't know what to think anymore and am worried about getting that first job after graduation in April.

Fiona59 · Oct 2, 2013

Workplace utilization is a joke. End of.

My unit has not been looked at yet and others have had their third rotation change. It's depressing. At least the units that have had the change knows what is happening. For others, we are just hanging on and hoping for the best. Rumours abound and people are fed up of waiting.