Starting salaries for new nurses

krestniy · May 2, 2010

$21/hr in St. Louis, $25/hr if you work night shifts. I'd be curious to hear about other places in the country, for example NJ.

Silverdragon102, BSN · May 2, 2010

$21/hr in St. Louis, $25/hr if you work night shifts. I'd be curious to hear about other places in the country, for example NJ.

Just to point out this is in the Australian forum :)

talaxandra · May 2, 2010

Salary and conditions vary from state to state - here are links to current pay rates in Western Australia and Queensland. Remember to include weekend and shift penalties, which contribute significantly to your takehome pay, and (if you're looking at the public sector) salary packaging to lower your taxable income.

I'm a CNS - my hourly rate is $30.915 or $2,473.20 a fortnight before tax; taking a random pay slip, that increased to $3,119.63 (or by almost 40%) with weekend and shift penalties. Using salary packaging toward my living expenses, I reduced my tax to just over $500 (around 16%) instead of ~ $710.

Hope that helps :)

tanu80 · May 5, 2010

I have heard that nurses dont pay tax in oz, is that true?

ceridwyn · May 5, 2010

I wish!!!! fair dinkum, some keen agency was using that one, the only time there different tax scales is if you work in a remote area or up north, I think they have some sort of tax break...its lower but they still pay tax.....in a hospital you can salary sacrifice or a community health centre, they pay some of your pay to a salary sacrifice company, they then tax whats left of your income and then the salary sacrifice company pays you the rest of your pay a couple of days later....lowers tax some what.

talaxandra · May 5, 2010

Um no - I posted diorectly above you, talking about my post-tax income!

Like ceridwyn said, the only exceptions/variations are ultra high demand remote placements. If you want a tax-exempt post you could try the Middle East...

Buran09 · Jun 13, 2010

Salary and conditions vary from state to state

So practically speaking how much a nurse with 4 years of experience earns in Melbourne? What's the job market look like for those in ICU? If you work is a specialty settings (like ICU) do they count all your hospital experience (like med/surge) or just a specialty experience? Can you choose to work nights/weekends or have to rotate through those shifts? Is there a lot of competition among nurses to work nights/weekends/holidays?

Buran09 · Jun 13, 2010

duplicate

K+MgSO4, BSN · Jun 13, 2010

it is not the hospital counting your experience but the nursing registration board who give your "grade" as a nurse which obviously increases every year provided you work enough hours.

Shift rotation depends on the departments' policy but most places you rotate from days to nights and back again on a regular basis.

Have a look a the ANF VIC branch website for the pay scales for public hospitals. Pay is determined by the state pay agreement not on a person to person or hospital to hospital bases.

the public health system contains the 2 trauma centres The Alfred and The Royal Melbourne and other hospitals in Melbourne with ICUs but the 2 above are the state trauma centres.

The Alfred has the burns unit and the hyperbaric unit, heart and lung transplant and bone marrow transplant.

RMH has neuro surg and is also the colorectal and renal transplant centre as well as CT surgery.

Most private hospitals use the public pay agreement as a guideline as well from what I am aware of.

talaxandra · Jun 13, 2010

The Alfred has neurosurg too, and also does renal transplants :)

K+MgSO4, BSN · Jun 13, 2010

sorry! Was just reading most of it off the websites! Not that familiar with the Alfred as RMH!

They have recently developed a new nephrology surgery unit and currently have no resident or dedicatedintern on it! fun times!! As they are still doing GenSurg as well it is difficult when the proverbial hits the fan after hours!