Wish the Media Caught on to the Real Issue.. NO NEW GRAD POSITIONS

llg, PhD, RN · Feb 16, 2009

The news media have RARELY done a good job of covering the complexities of the nursing hiring market, the "shortage," etc. Reporters are looking for a quick story to publish ... not to dig deep to understand and report on what is in reality, a very comlex situation.

Unfortunately, a lot of people use those newspaper stories as their main source of information -- errrrrr -- perhaps I should say "mis-information."

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Feb 16, 2009

I also cannot stand Johnson & Johnson's marketing campaign to get more nurses into the job market. All of their TV commercials and posters feature young, attractive, fresh-faced nurses who are all smiles. This might distort reality and paint an unrealistic mental image to a person who is looking to enter the field.

NurseCubanitaRN2b, BSN, RN · Feb 16, 2009

Sad reality is that I was speaking with a few RN graduates who haven't been able to find a job and they were looking all over the San Jose region and there is a hiring freeze all over the place INCLUDING NEW GRAD PROGRAMS STARTING IN AUGUST....this is such a scary thing for all the nursing graduates and also future graduates....You have a lot of unemployed California RN's and then you have more foreign graduate nurses trying to enter the country for these new grad positions....There is just an influx of nurses and not enough positions available for everyone.....My advise to everyone is to just take a job in the LTC facility just to keep your skills up....then apply to the hospitals once you can get your foot in the door...Good Luck to everyone~!

suzanne4, RN · Feb 18, 2009

The so-called "foreign new grads" can only enter if they have a green card already in hand from being petitioned by a spouse. Do not know of any hospitals in CA that even offer the H1-B visa as a start, as well as the fact that the retrogression has been in place for more than 27 months already.

The others that think that they can come here and just start working will find themselves in immigration detention if they do not have the proper documents to be able to work.

Sure, you see people posting all of the time, but they are not getting visas since the US does not have any available to issue.

At issue should be the fact that CA obtained additional funds several years ago to train new RNs to have them available for when the baby boomers retired. This actually was quite a promising as well as large undertaking to take on. No one expected the economy to tank like it has over the past few months.

But notice how many threads that you see on this forum asking about nursing programs, and better yet, nursing programs in the Bay Area; where they are not going to be able to get hired when they are done with it. This is what needs to be brought to the attention of everyone, especially for those that are going to be unable to move.

newgrad82 · Feb 18, 2009

LatinaVNStudent... do you know any specific LTC facilities that are hiring? I graduated last September and have been looking ever since. I would be happy to get a job at a LTC but since new grads have had problems finding jobs in the bay area for about a year now those LTC jobs seem to have dried up. If you know of any that need nurses, I would love to apply.