What's better surplus or shortage?

[suanna]

Nursing shortage: Constantly short staffed, endless new hires as people look for better opportunities, mandatory overtime, and providing only the most basic care possible, and every now-and-then working with the most marginal of nurses because they are the only ones the place could find; but you get lots of opportunity for better positions, better benefits, better wages, flexible scheduling.

Nursing Surplus: you get wage cuts, lay offs, benefit cuts, no better/other jobs out there; but, you get highly skilled staff, adequate staffing, never have to worry about being "mandated".

Which do you think is better?

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

It's a bogus question.

There never was a nursing shortage. It didn't exist. It was implied by some powerful lobbying groups to drive down wages and control the nursing profession.

The nursing surplus was created by the artificial nursing shortage contrived by the AHA to raise nurse patient ratios, slash labor costs and increase profits.

Both the nursing surplus and fake nursing shortage are better for the corporations who have been the ruination of American healthcare.

Eventually nurses will unionize across the country. We can not be outsourced. Nurses are the United Auto Workers of the 21st century.

[suanna]

to icuRNmaggie.

No nursing shortage now, but in the late 80s in my area of the country nurses were being offered $2000-$4000 hiring bonus without a contract to stay past 6 mos. Nursing staff who got an RN to apply got a $500. bonus/applicant. We were using agency staffing, mandatory overtime, travelers, and scraping together each shift with whatever nursing staff we could dig up. I do agree the "great nursing shortage" of the new millenium so far is a crock. I'm all for collective bargaining for nurses, but as to being the next UAW- no thanks. I can only judge by by experience with the Rubber Workers in the late 70's, but you had highschool dropouts demanding and getting an hourly wage 1-2 times that of nurses at the time. (as a starting wage). "We can't be outsourced"- don't kid yourself. When the shortage was at its worst in 86-88 half the hospitals in my area would staff with a couple of LPNs, and a couple of paramedics. The house supervisor qualified as the RN directing care. That was before "med techs" and "tele techs" and whatever unlicenced caregivers you want to name. You can't outsource all RNs but you can sure cut them back A LOT if you have to. "Have to" may become -"can't afford not to" if we aren't careful about how hard we push the ceiling.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

I remember my own employer gave me a $20,000.00 bonus for nights for a year. I know as late as 2002 a huge hospital in my area in New England gave a 100% tuition/loan forgiveness for a promise to work 2 years

SHORTAGE...the benefits were far better and we were treated with respect.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

There's been a surplus of nurses in my city of residence since late 2008/early 2009, and employers currently espouse the attitude that "If you nurses don't like it here, there's the door." They don't care about attrition anymore because HR's computer database is filled with hundreds of online applications from potential replacements.

Wages in this area have remained stagnant or outright decreased. Some 'desirable' employers offer experienced RNs with BSN degrees the laughable wage of $25/hourly with a "take it or leave it" attitude because there are nurses out there who will readily take what others leave.

Back in 2000 (a shortage year), 500,000 nurses with active licenses were not employed in nursing. These nurses were younger than retirement age, too. There was never a true shortage of nurses overall. Rather, there was a shortage of nurses who would willingly work while short-staffed, disrespected, and paid noncompetitive pay rates for their years of education and experience.

I'd prefer a shortage if given a choice because, with a glut of nurses, employers now have the upper hand. And we all know that employers are not looking out for the best interests of nurses or patients.

[joanna73, BSN, RN]

Most Canadian facilities are unionized. In some respects the union is beneficial. However, the government dictates our union policies and unions are not as powerful as they were. Your job can still be eliminated with little to no notice.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

I think that we tend to use the wrong frame of reference for this issue. We need to be examining "supply and demand" rather than a particular supply of nurses. DEMAND will always trump supply, no matter whether the pundits say that there is an over- or under-supply. Even if there are (theoretically) too few nurses, if there are not enough jobs, then the real-life situation is a surplus.

IMO, the biggest problem is that the sources of information about the adequacy of the nursing supply ..... are using population estimates (number of nurses per person) rather than the reality of actual available jobs. Since workload/ patient ratios have only been mandated by CA, employer decisions such as increasing workload or substituting UAPs can make a 'shortage' disappear overnight.

It will be interesting to see how the ongoing "safe staffing" legislation in several states will impact the situation.