MILWAUKEE, Jan. 5, 2009
Nursing Industry Desperate For New Hires
With Applicants Scarce, Recruiters Turn To Creative Means To End Chronic Understaffing
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The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts about 233,000 additional jobs will open for registered nurses each year through 2016. (AP)
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Sounds too good to be true, especially in an economy riddled with job cuts in nearly every industry. But applicants for nursing jobs are still so scarce that recruiters have been forced to get increasingly inventive.
One Michigan company literally rolled out a red carpet at a recent hiring event. Residential Home Health, which provides in-home nursing for seniors on Medicare, lavished registered nurses and other health care workers with free champagne and a trivia contest hosted by game-show veteran Chuck Woolery. Prizes included a one-year lease for a 2009 SUV, hotel stays and dinners.
"We're committed to finding ways to creatively engage with passive job seekers," said David Curtis, president of the Madison Heights-based company.
Recruiters like Curtis may have little choice. The long-standing U.S. nurse shortage has led to chronic understaffing that can threaten patient care and nurses' job satisfaction, and the problem is expected to worsen.
The shortage has been operating since World War II on an eight- to 10-year cycle, industry experts say. Each time the number of nurses reaches a critical low, the government adds funding and hospitals upgrade working conditions. But as the deficit eases, those retention efforts fade and eventually the old conditions return, often driving nurses into other professions.
"We recently had a hiring event where, for experienced nurses to interview - just to interview - we gave them $50 gas cards," said Tom Zinda, the director of recruitment at Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare in the Milwaukee-area city of Glendale. "We really try to get as creative as we can. It's a tough position to fill."
Recruiters across the country have tried similar techniques, offering chair massages, lavish catering and contests for flat-screen TVs, GPS devices and shopping sprees worth as much as $1,000.
Even strong salaries aren't doing the trick. Registered nurses made an average of $62,480 in 2007, ranging from a mean of $78,550 in California to $49,140 in Iowa, according to government statistics. Including overtime, usually abundantly available, the most experienced nurses can earn more than $100,000.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts about 233,000 additional jobs will open for registered nurses each year through 2016, on top of about 2.5 million existing positions. But only about 200,000 candidates passed the Registered Nurse licensing exam last year, and thousands of nurses leave the profession each year.
Several factors are in play: a lack of qualified instructors to staff training programs, lack of funding for training programs, difficult working conditions and the need for expertise in many key nursing positions.
Cheryl Peterson, the director of nursing practice and policy for the American Nurses Association in Silver Spring, Md., said employers must raise salaries and improve working conditions.
"The wages haven't kept up with the level of responsibility and accountability nurses have," said Peterson, whose organization represents nurses' interests. Chronic understaffing means nurses are overworked, she said, and as burned-out nurses leave the situation spirals for the colleagues they leave behind.
Some hospital departments where experience is vital, such as the emergency room or intensive-care unit, simply cannot hire newly minted nurses. So managers in those areas have even fewer staffing choices.
Nurses qualified to teach aspiring nurses are scarce chiefly because they can make at least 20 percent more working at a hospital, experts said.
"It can be hard to turn down that extra money," said Robert Rosseter, the associate executive director of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing in Washington, D.C.
Many recruiters have looked for employees overseas, and about one-fourth of the nurses who earned their licenses in 2007 were educated internationally, most in the Philippines and India.
Some health organizations go out of their way to recruit as many nurses as possible even when they're overstaffed.
Residential Home Health, the home-nursing company in Michigan, is always looking to hire, Curtis said. Even with 375 clinical professionals on staff, his recruiters are eager to sign up as many as 50 more nurses and therapists, hence the Chuck Woolery event.
Zinda, the Milwaukee-area recruiter, said creative recruiting helps to introduce nurses to his hospital. Besides offering interviewees $50 gas cards, he has provided $100 gift cards to the local mall, and created a Facebook page to target younger nurses.
Attracting good candidates is about offering good working conditions, he said, but creative recruiting goes a long way in generating a buzz.
"Bottom line, you need to get people excited about what you're offering," he said. "If you don't, they can easily go elsewhere."
© MMIX The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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See all 26 CommentsWhat difference does it make if the nurses are imported or US citizens? There''s the same rate of burnout in either group.
My point is, that those of us in nursing (SHOULD) have known the game plan from the very beginning, but we became nurses anyway. Yes I want a good salary/compensation for the work that I do, but that''s NOT the only reason I''m a nurse. I''m a nurse because I enjoy working with patients and teaching the patients how to get better and stay better. The thing that makes me feel better than anything else? When a patient says "Thank You" as they''re wheeled out the door to go home!
Posted by mswolfestock at 02:15 PM : Jan 06, 2009
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We wouldn''t have this issue if our health industry wasn''t in such shambles either. Most doctors are cheap and don''t want to put money back into their practice or update the equipment or conditions.
People need to quit relying on "modern medicine" to make up for their poor lifestyle choices (gluttony, smoking, drinking too much, avoiding exercise) and take more personal responsibility for maintaining good health.
The last time I went for a pap smear and mammogram, 80 percent of the people I saw in the hospital were grossly over weight. The little "smoker''s shack" off to the side of the parking lot was full of people trying their darndest to get lung cancer. It was disgusting.
Health care professionals do not "give" good health, and I couldn''t blame any of them for becoming burned out by having to save people who refuse to save themselves.
Compensate nurses the way you compensate doctors and "hospital administration" and there''d be no nursing shortage!!
IT IS ABOUT THE MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As for "importing" nurses, done to the max
It would be very nice if the Associated Press (the source of this article) would remember that nursing is NOT and industry. We are a PROFESSION!! And believe me, we work hard every day of our lives to earn that designation. Frankly the headline of this article is offensive as hell to me.
Nursing wouldn''t HAVE a shortage if they took advantage of the experience base out there. In the past year and a half, I have been turned down for several jobs because I have 25 years experience and I''m too expensive for their BUDGETS. Have they told me that...no...but I HAVE had it confirmed.
I moved from Portland, OR to the midwest only to be told by a smarmy little nurse manager that I wasn''t a fit for her telemetry unit. (Sorry, that''s my bitterness coming out) Even though I''d worked 25 years in telemetry/progressive care. So I ended up in a job making $20,000 a year less that I had been in Portland....and am going BACK to Portland this spring....and thank God I can do that. But it will be interesting if my former employer will hire me...because in Portland, I''d make $42.00 and hour.
And for all of those of you who want to whine about how much we get paid....get over it. We''ve worked hard, we put up with almost daily changes in technology, paper work, and yes, rude patients.
My point is, nursing needs to look to ITSELF to solve its problems...since THAT''S where they began.
It''s not uncommon to have any hospital offer a sign on bonus of $10K for a new nurse then another $3K to the slave trader who sent them to the hospital for the 1 yr. contract for their servitude to the hospital.
As a qualified USA nurse you can travel the world and stay in places you could only dream of as any other profession. I''ve been paid top dollars to work in Hawaii with paid housing and an automobile at my disposal. Then off to Cairo for a year where the money was far better but the social amenities really sucked as their culture far more reserved than that of America. There''s still no place like home. Once you get passed the arrogant Dr''s and Hosp. Admins., of course
Posted by ms1-1-1 at 11:16 PM : Jan 05, 2009
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The fastest growing cases of HIV are in elderly white males who have discovered Viagra.
Posted by yongamerica at 02:22 AM : Jan 06, 2009
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Actually nursing students often (not always) take a different track than doctors even in 4 years of college. Doctors then continue for 4 years of medical school, 3 years of residency and then an internship.
This is nothing against the training of nurses, but it is very different from the training of a doctor.
The market obviously supports higher wages for nurses based on supply and demand.
I was stuck by a contaminated needle in 1985 when a patient who was delerious jumped off the bed when receiving an injection. He was HIV full blown Aids and I was most fortunate to have not developed the condition but was started on Retrovere imeadiately for a year as a preventive protocol.
Yes things happen even when you are as cautious as can be and follow all procedures stuff happens... Just have to be mindful and be careful.
I am now retired and operate my own company.
I would still works with Aids Patients or any patient for that matter who was ill. I still maintain my license and if timesw were bad enough i would not hesitate to re-enter the workforce as a Nurse bUt frankly it would not be worth it. I make to much with my company 3 times what I made as a nurse...
BTW, I have never seen or heard a nurse ask a patient about their sexual preferences in the many years that I worked in ICU and in the ER. Somehow that just isn''t part of their nursing assessment. Mind you, they can usually tell, but that never changes how a patient is treated. That patient would get the same care as any other patient with the same illness.
you can have it.
Posted by ms1-1-1 at 11:16 PM : Jan 05, 2009
You are full of fecal material...
There has been only ONE case in the 20 plus years that HIV has been around that there was contamination of a healthcare worker and that was because the worker didn''t follow standard universal isolation protocol. There have been more people working in healthcare that have been exposed to and developed hepatitis than have developed HIV/AIDS due to their jobs. That is because hepatitis is easier to transmit. Why don''t you actually find out what you are spouting off about before you do so.
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