Nurse Graduates Find Jobs Are Scarce

by Alex A. Kecskes

If you're a recently graduated nurse, you may find it tough to land a job in this economic downturn. Medical institutions are discovering that they simply can't hire any more nurses, or they have all the nurses they need for now.

Hospitals that once offered signing bonuses and tuition payments, now can’t afford to hire and train recent grads. Most candidates must have a year or more of nursing experience to fill many current job vacancies.

Some hospitals faced with shrinking budgets are forcing nurses to work during their breaks and cover for each other, a practice that puts patients at risk, argue nursing unions. Nursing groups support mandatory reporting of nurse-patient ratios, but hospital trade groups fear this will lead to legislation mandating smaller nurses to patient ratios.

The result is that thousands of licensed nurses who have graduated but lack experience may be forced to leave the nursing profession and find other employment to survive.

The shortage of registered nurses in the U.S. could reach 500,000 by 2025, according to a Nursing Shortage Report released in March 2008 by Dr. Peter Buerhaus of Vanderbilt University's School of Nursing.

There is a ray of hope. The California Institute for Nursing and Health Care (CINHC) has created a program to help jobless new grads maintain their clinical skills, remain in the nursing profession, and find employment once the economy improves. Unfortunately, the CINHC program can only accept a limited number of new graduate nurses. Similar programs are needed around the country.

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