The article "Thousands of New Grad Nurses Rejected for Employment in 2010" accurately reflects the situation of 2011; little has changed in the one-year interim. New graduate registered nurses (RNs) without experience are not finding jobs in nursing. These frustrated job-seekers find that media coverage often focuses on a projected nursing shortage instead of the current rate of unemployment among new graduate RNs.
To understand the frustration of these new grads, consider the Youtube video " New Grads and the Nursing Shortage " and a profanity-laced tirade critiqued by the author of "Nursing Shortage? Not in some Eyes." The new graduate RN faces a difficult job market, student loan payments, realization that nursing is not a recession-proof career, and a public deluged with reports of nursing shortages and job vacancies while the newly (or not so newly) graduated nurse remains jobless.
Unemployed New Grad Registered Nurses
On May 5, 2009 Jessica Chang of NBC San Diego reported "The state of California is stepping in to alleviate the nursing shortage. The Board of Registered Nurses just approved the nations first accredited online baccalaureate degree nursing program....classes will begin in July of this year (2009)." But months later, in February 2010, the California Institute for Nursing and Healthcare (CINHC) published "California's Latest Nursing Workforce Challenge: The Hiring Dilemma of New Graduates" and contradicted Chang's assertion that increasing the number of nursing students and new graduates would solve California's nursing shortage.
The CINHC reported that, "Newly graduated nurses are having great difficulty finding jobs as registered nurses (RNs), as they compete with experienced nurses who are working more because of the economy. With fewer nurses retiring or working part-time, positions typically available to new nurses have dried up and hospitals and health systems have cut back dramatically on new graduate hires. As a result, an alarming number of new nurses are unemployed or opting for non-nursing opportunities." Nursing schools, however, are responding to projected shortages not the current glut of new grads.
Explaining Hospitals not Hiring New Grad RNs
Many of the unemployed registered nurses of 2011 hoped to alleviate the nursing shortage when they began their nursing education years earlier. But, despite staffing shortages and unfilled nursing vacancies, hospitals are not hiring new graduates. Providing novice nurses with mandatory training is costly and time-consuming for hospitals yet hospitals are often the only facilities with adequate resources for new grad programs.
In the 2011 Medscape article "Looking out for our New Nurse Grads," author Laura Stokowski examines the crisis. Writes Stokowski, "It seems that many of our new grads are stuck in that perennial dilemma: They can't get a job without experience, and they can't get experience without a job. This situation was not anticipated by thousands of nursing students who were told, often repeatedly, that a global nursing shortage practically guaranteed employment for them. The messages that nurses are getting these days are not only confusing, they are downright conflicting."
When will Hospitals Hire New Grads?
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation published the optimistically titled May 2010 article "Good News for Nursing Grads in Tight Job Market: Healthcare Organizations add Nursing Jobs." According to the article, "experts predict a future surge in demand for nurses, especially now that the health reform bill has been signed into law." But new graduate registered nurses struggle to find nursing jobs in 2011.
Many nursing students are jobless for an extended period following graduation, and others cannot find work as RNs. Statistics indicate that 40 percent of California's new graduates are not working in hospitals. In the meantime, nursing schools continue to tout nursing as a recession-proof profession and encourage more students to attend. Jobless new grad RNs overwhelmed by college loan payments, contradictory information, and successful graduation that did not lead to a successful career - must persevere despite frustration and disappointment.
According to projections, the demand for nurses will eventually reach crisis-level. While waiting for recognition of the crisis in healthcare, the new grad nurse must continue the job search, earn education credits units (CEUs), and find opportunities to practice nursing skills. New graduate nurses face a challenge as they wait for the job market to improve.
Sources:
Morkert, Jessica. New RN Grad Job Shortage. KOIN News. October 2010.
Chang, Jessica. "No way to Heal Nursing Shortage." NBC San Diego. May 2009
Stokowski, Laura. Looking Out for our New Nurse Grads. Medscape. June 2011
Marian Henderson - I was in the Marine Corps for 12 years, and after completing my last four-year enlistment, I became a Merchant Marine. I worked aboard ...
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