US economic crisis and Nurses???

Tolle_lege · Oct 11, 2008

I think the economy will affect everyone, there will probably still be staffing shortages, but less money to hire new nurses.

HeartsOpenWide, RN · Oct 11, 2008

I think the economy will affect everyone, there will probably still be staffing shortages, but less money to hire new nurses.

MY friend talked to some of the hospital recruiters in S.F. and they told her they will not be hiring any new grads because it cost too much $ to train with the way the economy is right now and how it is going...only experienced nurses.... :sniff:

FireStarterRN, BSN, RN · Oct 11, 2008

I've said many times here, there are jobs in LTC. You can get your start there then make the switch when prospects improve. Or relocate if possible.

These things go in cycles. The same thing happened when I was in nursing school, I went straight to LTC, down the road the job market opened up and I switched to acute care. As possiblities opened up, I took them and ended up with enough experience to work agency.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Oct 11, 2008

Read my recent thread, entitled "Nursing Is Not Always Recession-Proof."

https://allnurses.com/forums/f8/nursing-not-always-recession-proof-339487.html

And yes, a bad economy can adversely effect the nursing job market.

dreamon · Oct 11, 2008

Is there any dowside to starting off in LTC? Somewhere else on the site made it seem like if you started off there you would have to stay since it is different from hospital nursing- is this true?

FireStarterRN, BSN, RN · Oct 11, 2008

It didn't work that way for me. I was able to make the transition easily.

justme79 · Oct 11, 2008

We are seeing more foriegn nurses and it makes me wonder if they will be preferred over new grads. One presidential candidate is interested in making it easier for foriegners to come to the US and work. I'm trying to get certified in my area to help with job security.

cherrybreeze, ADN, RN · Oct 11, 2008

We are seeing our overall patient census average drop...people are just not coming to the hospital, not having *elective* procedures done, etc....it is hurting us.

pagandeva2000, LPN · Oct 11, 2008

I anticipate seeing more patients come to the clinic I work at, because this is a city hospital that takes people whether they can pay or not. I am seeing more white collar professionals already than I have ever seen before.

love-d-OR · Oct 11, 2008

HeartsopenWide, its funny you made that comment. I was just talking to a couple of experienced nurse at my job and they seemed to think the opposite. I told them how I personally knew of new grads that could not find jobs, and of the overwhelming amount of new grad posters on this forum looking for jobs. I believe hospitals would rather hire experienced nurses, that are ready to hit the floor running on day one but might require minimal orientation as opposed to a new grad who needs months of training. However, they believe that hospitals would rather hire a new grad because their hourly wage is cheaper. What do you guys think? I have said this before, there is no shortage of new grads, there is however a shortage of experienced nurses.

I also know of a day care center that had to cut back on hiring RN's, due to the buget cuts in California. The owner was devastated saying she could not afford to get an RN to do intake assessments. We might still get to keep our jobs, but I doubt our wages will keep up with the inflation. And I certainly do not look forward to any kind of increase in my taxes!

woknblues · Oct 12, 2008

We are seeing more foriegn nurses and it makes me wonder if they will be preferred over new grads. One presidential candidate is interested in making it easier for foriegners to come to the US and work. I'm trying to get certified in my area to help with job security.

You are aware that there has been a visa freeze for foreign grads for almost 4 years now right?

Anywho, yeah, budgets will be cut and so on and so forth. However, many nurses will be retiring (perhaps later, yes, due to economy) but still, baby boomers in the US will be hitting 65 years of age at a rate of 10,000 PER DAY. So quick math of nurses at 1% of the population reveals that 100 nurses per day will be hitting 65 soon. Of course, this phenomenon plays out in all job markets, but the nursing population has always been older demographically since women began to take non traditional working roles in the 70s and 80s outside of nursing. As men were not taking nursing jobs during that time by and large (and still to this day in general), and the nurses had exposure to poor working conditions and higher turnover, there are simply less nurses, and the number is shrinking as compared to population. No matter how you look at it, there will always be a shortage. Right this moment, yeah, jobs are tight. This is an economic cycle. When we hit the peak of retirement aged nurses (65 years old) at 1,000+ per month in the next 5-10 years, We can look back at this thread and chuckle at the "surplus" crisis bubble of 2008.

Also, I might point out that just because a lot of internet savvy new grads post here (myself included) about not being able to find a job within weeks of graduating, does not necessarily mean much in terms of a job problem for nursing. It means that their(our) unrealistic expectations of instant jobs were not met. 10 years ago, I went almost 6 months to find a middle management job in the construction field, during the "building boom" of the western states. There was lots of work and jobs, right?

Anyways, just a bit of rambling here. I thought we could all use a little perk up over the doom and gloom in the news.