There is a hiring freeze in Seattle, you know

heddi · Feb 5, 2009

UW budget is expected to be cut by 47% with the 2009 budget.

UW, Harborview, and VM have just cancelled all of the travelers and agency RN's they had been using. They are allowing them to have 30 days of housing (if they are provided housing) to get their affairs in order, but they are no longer working for the hospitals. Swedish is not extending traveler contracts nor are they accepting new travelers at this time.

UW and Harborview have cancelled their ICU consortium that was to start in Feb.

UW and Harborview have rescinded job offers they extended to new grads that were supposed to start in Feb. There are no new grads at HMC or UW at this time.

There are jobs listed online and in the paper, but they are not actively hiring anyone until the freeze is over. They are accepting applications but will not go through the application pool until the hiring freeze is over. All of the listed positions say "We do not have positions for new graduates at this time"

Several hospitals are already talking about not honoring collective agreement contracts regarding pay raises. HMC has said they will not honor the anual pay raise for this June or July.

Not trying to be a downer, but the crappy economy has just "officially" hit Washington/Seattle (while the rest of the country has been feeling it for quite some time) and I think everyone is freaking out a bit too much. Most everyone agrees that in a few months, everything will settle down and we'll get back to normal, with new grads and travelers and agency, but not right now.

Good luck!