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Lured by promises of sure-fire employment, many nursing grads are surprised to find a tight job market and few prospects for new RNs.
Brand new registered nurses in Nebraska, New York and Maryland are having trouble finding work, a problem many experts and administrators attribute to the current recession. Hospitals and healthcare facilities are cutting costs — a measure that often means a hiring freeze. The atmosphere of economic uncertainty also means that nurses who otherwise might have retired as staying in the workforce while nurses who have been out of the workforce are returning to nursing full-time.  New grads, with little or no experience, face an extremely competitive job market.
Most experts expect the crunch to ease with the recession, as older nurses retire and an aging population increases demand for care. That thought, though, is little comfort to the RNs looking for work today.
“I thought I was going to be able to find [a job] right off the bat, but it didn’t work out that way,” says Tamara Medina, a Hagerstown Community College grad who was quoted in The Herald-Mail.
How’s the job market in your neck of the woods? Do you think nursing colleges have done nursing grads a disservice by playing up opportunities for employment after graduation?
