Nursing Industry Needs A Few Good Employees
Posted on: Tuesday, 6 January 2009, 07:15 CST
The news of growing unemployment often grabs the headlines, but the nursing industry is taking desperate measures to hire new employees.
Michigan based Residential Home Health actually rolled out a red carpet at a recent hiring event. It lavished registered nurses and other health care workers with both 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, in an interview with Associated Press.
Experts say the long-standing U.S. nurse shortage has led to chronic understaffing that can threaten patient care and nurses' job satisfaction.
"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 gone the extra mile, offering chair massages, lavish catering and contests for flat-screen TVs, GPS devices and shopping sprees worth as much as $1,000.
According to government statistics, registered nurses made an average of $62,480 in 2007, ranging from $78,550 in California to $49,140 in Iowa.
Yet, 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.
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.
She said some hospital departments where experience is vital, like the emergency room or intensive-care unit, simply cannot hire new nurses. So managers in those areas have even fewer staffing choices.
Nurses qualified to teach aspiring nurses are scarce because they can make at least 20 percent more working at a hospital.
"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.
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On the Net:
- Residential Home Health
- Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- American Nurses Association
- American Association of Colleges of Nursing
Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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