"Staffs full, nurses struggle for work; Recession hits a once-sure thing" by Megan Woolhouse, Globe Staff | April 18, 2009
When Katharine Barron enrolled in Boston College's school of nursing in 2005, everyone - family, friends, college officials - assured her hospitals would be "banging down her door" with job offers.
Because nurses were in such high demand, they said, Barron's degree was going to be like a guaranteed paycheck. Or so she thought. Turns out Barron will be lucky to land work in Boston after she graduates later this year. The 22-year-old Newton native will be saddled with more than $100,000 in student loans and anticipates moving back to her parents' home....
Because of the recession, nursing jobs are scarce for the first time in years.... As a result, many nursing students on the cusp of graduation are scrambling to find employment....
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center recently said it will lay off more than 100 employees, including nurses, and officials at two Boston nursing schools said opportunities for new nurses are nearly nonexistent at Children's Hospital. There are two major reasons for the lack of new jobs. First, most hospitals are treating fewer patients as people put off costly elective surgery. At the same time, many experienced part-time nurses are looking for more hours, while others are coming out of retirement because a spouse was laid off....
It is a situation nurses have not faced in a long time. For most of the last decade, nursing shortages were the rule. Hospitals frequently offered $5,000 to $10,000 sign-on bonuses, and many promised cars or generous vacation packages to attract nurses just out of school....
Susan Hassmiller, a senior adviser for nursing at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a private foundation that has extensively researched the nursing shortage, said many nurses could use the downturn to gain experience in the growing field of home healthcare, which is expected to explode as baby boomers age.
Many nurses will shun those jobs, she said, because the pay is lower and they offer less excitement and prestige. "New grads always want to go to the hospitals first, and you can get paid a lot more in hospitals than a community setting," Hassmiller said. But "this blip . . . may not be such a bad thing," she added....
Yeah, swabbing up someone's shit and changing their diaper for less pay is a great career move.
