Yes You Can Find Nursing Jobs, LPN and RN Jobs in Today’s Market!
by: Bill Stevens

Looking for nursing jobs, LPN jobs or RN jobs?? No better place to start than right here!Not even 10 years ago, enrollment into nursing programs were called crazy for a number of reasons- the job was (is still) difficult, and there was a shortage of jobs for all of the RN training school graduates out there.

Not any more! For a long time, people who studied the healthcare industry said that there might be a reversal of fortune, and there has been. Gradually, care providers such as nursing homes and hospitals, who depended on nurses to operate, came to realize that as nurses left their jobs they were becoming more and more difficult to replace. This has led to a severe shortage in the number of nurses available in the US- and the situation is getting worse. The shortage of qualified nurses is a global problem, meaning that health care providers have to compete on a world-wide scale to fill nursing positions.

What the nursing shortage should amount to, in the long run, is a much more improved working environment for nurses in the future. In the short term, however, this shortage is proving to be difficult to overcome and may actually contribute to the frustrations many nurses feel which cause them not only to leave their jobs but also to discourage others from taking up the profession.

In order to ensure that the current crisis in nursing does not continue much further into the future, the two areas of retention and recruitment need to be addressed. This article will take a look at some of the topics that come up among nurses when it comes to addressing these issues.

With up to 40% of the nursing workforce expected to retire over the next 10 years, it’s very important to keep the younger members of the profession happy, so that the current crisis in the field can be halted.

The general public is coming to the realization that nurses play just as important a role in the healthcare system as doctors and other medical professionals do, and the industry is starting to realize it, as well. Many nurses complain that they are not accorded the level of respect they deserve, as nursing is seen as less of a “profession” and more of a “job”. Physicians are often guilty of this, making nurses feel as if they are simply there to mechanically carry out the doctor’s orders, and nothing more. As the system loses more and more nurses, it will become more and more important to grant those remaining the appropriate level of respect.

The nursing shortage has meant that everyone has realized just how rigorous the training and testing is that allows a prospective nurse to become a registered nurse, and that the number of years required to be trained for this position is equivalent to the number it takes to earn a Bachelor of Arts or any other undergraduate degree.

Another oft-cited concern of professional nurses is that the conditions in their places of work are very poor. In this case, work conditions do not apply to the many different situations a nurse will have to put up with from patients during a course of a day; rather, they concern areas of the job that are directly informed by management policy, such as hours of work, nurse to patient ratio, the use of support staff, and the condition of equipment.

Most nurses in the US work a combination of both day and night shifts. Of course, it’s impossible to run a medical facility without nurses, yet the inconvenience of working a night shift is not currently compensated any differently. One way to increase the attractiveness of the position would be to do as they do in other professions and pay more for workers that take night shifts, and some facilities are already looking at revising work schedules so that night shifts are not as long as day shifts are, with some adding in a “swing” shift.

Government spending increases on healthcare should help resolve some concerns about jobs in nursing, including the concerns nurses have about support staff and equipment. Nursing is a job that includes quite a lot of lifting, so medical care facilities will need to invest in modern equipment to assist with this burden so that nurses can have longer careers. Many nurses also report that they are held responsible for performing duties that would traditionally fall to a receptionist or an orderly, and in order for them to stay focused on their nursing duties, care facilities will have to budget better so that nurses aren’t being needlessly overburdened.

In the short term, the nurse to patient ratio will continue to be the biggest problem concerning both nurses and patients. The nursing shortage means that most facilities cannot fill vacant positions needed in order to bring the ratio down to a level that nurses are comfortable with. However, by properly addressing the issue, there is hope that this situation can be resolved.

Recruiting of nurses is the second vital focus for the future of nursing. This milieu will see increasing attempts to train nurses properly, and increased efforts by medical providers to attract good nurses. Those that can’t offer sufficient training and enticements will soon find themselves without enough nurses to run their facilities!

Unfortunately, universities and colleges are not graduating enough nurses quickly enough, to replace those that are leaving the profession. Further complicating things is the fact that many of them are not going to work in traditional nursing workplaces such as hospitals but are instead choosing relatively lower-stress jobs with higher levels of pay such as nursing homes or incarceration facilities.

In order to improve the patient to nurse ratio that is such a common complaint among nurses, it is vital to increase the number of students coming out of nursing schools across the country. Universities and colleges need to have the funding available to create these spaces. In addition, facilities and governments will have to offer programs such as student loan forgiveness programs in order to attract potential students to the profession.

In the last decade there has been much growth in so called “secondary industries” targeted towards nurses, such as nursing agencies and travel nursing programs. Both of these types of organization hire their own nurses and then contract them out to facilities in need; as a result, these nurses are generally higher paid than their traditionally-employed counterparts and they also enjoy the benefit of changing their workplace frequently, often with travel expenses fully paid. Medical institutions are going to have to match these kinds of benefits to attract quality nurses.

As far as the nursing profession goes, the long term future is bright. The current shortage allows a graduating nurse to virtually write his or her own ticket. In addition, the shortage is expected to grow worse, which has pushed the concerns of nurses into the public spotlight. In order to alleviate the shortage, governments and facilities will have no choice but to meet the concerns of nurses in order to keep them at their jobs.

Alternatively, the future of the nursing profession may lie within nursing agencies. Unless facilities and governments realize that the concerns of nurses need to be met at the ground level, new and established nurses alike will continue to gravitate towards the pay and flexibility that these agencies offer.

Armed with these facts, you should be able to make an informed decision about whether becoming nurse is right for you. happy job hunting!

Thank you for reading my article, I hope it’s helpful in your search for nursing jobs, LPN jobs and RN jobs!

About the Author

Bill Stevens is a syndicated author, with articles, newsletters, blogs and ezine articles on the top of Online Job Searching, Referral Networking, Social Networking, Career Development, and Career Coaching.