The economy and your job

[StephanieS321]

Hey. I was just wondering your job has been affected by the economy recently? less overtime available, working less days, no raises, etc....

[HonestRN]

yes, I work on an ortho surg unit and we are seeing fewer elective surgeries

[RedhairedNurse, BSN, RN]

I heard on the news today that being in the medical field is a recession proof job.

I work on an ortho floor and we're just as busy as ever.

[texas2007, BSN, RN]

We've been booming since June, lots of OT available anytime you want with bonuses in addition to your OT pay, just hired a bunch of people too.

[ShayRN]

We have been as busy as ever. As a matter of fact, my agency job just sent out e-mails with open shifts every shift, until the middle of November for ONE floor.

[Tornadochaser]

At our hospital, we are staying busy: radiology, lab, pt, nurse assistant, clerk are all being cut back, they are even laying off the morgue transporters. nurses have been told our jobs are the only ones which wont be cut, good i guess but from my point of view we'll be doing alot more: drawing blood, inputting labs in computer, taking deceased body downstairs and arranging funeral pickup, i better not complain though :)

[rn-jane]

We have been pretty busy but our overtime bonuses we have just gotten notice is not in the budget anymore. They recently hired a bunch of new nurses so we are now overstaffed. I recently cut my days to 3 days a week which is part time for personal reasons but still get called to pick up extra time.

[Price 2002]

I just graduated from nursing school 2 weeks ago and went back to the facility I worked at before as an aide until I take the boards and while I was waiting to see what they were going to pay me to rehire I put in a couple more apps and made it clear on all of them that I would be a LPN soon and ALL of them called me back and offered me a really good starting wage and were interested in me as a LPN once I passed boards. I ended up going back to the LTC that I had worked at before because it was closest to home and pay is hard to beat and they are also wanting me as a LPN. For me I don't see the economy hurting my job or future jobs...at least not at this time! My husband is a Firefighter/EMT and doing really well in this slump too. When it comes down to it...people are always gonna get sick and need help.

[Ilithya]

My hours have been cut, but we got hit by Ike so two of our floors are yet to reopen, all our shifts that would give us overtime are cut and given to the nurses from those floors.

[uscstu4lfe]

we're hiring. sometimes we're really busy, other times we're really slow

[loricatus]

Less hours and no overtime right now because less elective surgeries. However, they are expecting things to perk up around the holidays because of people realizing that deductables run out at the end of the year. Sure hope so.

[pagandeva2000, LPN]

Thanks for starting this thread...I am always interested to know how nurses are affected by this recent enconomy trend.

I work for a city hospital clinic that accepts patients whether they can pay or not. I work per diem at my same hospital on med-surg units to obtain the bedside experience. A few weeks ago, I went to ask for overtime, and for the first time, they told me 'no'. It surprized me, but at the same time, I was tired, anyhow, but plan to observe.

I noticed lately that more white collar people are coming due to lost health insurance. They are sort of in a state of shock, I observed, because they are not used to coming to a crowded, standing room only type of clinic stting, where they have to wait for hours. I gather that this will increase. I'm just grateful to have a job with great benefits (I can see this changing when our union contract is up, though).