The Travel Nurse's World These Days
Jess and I are a little worried about our circumstances in the upcoming months. That is because our contracts will end by the first week of May. After that, our future is currently undecided.
Last year at this point in a contract, we were already making a decision about where to go for our next assignment. We had already gone through our choices and come up with a likely choice. The next step would be to have an interview, which we would have done within the next two or three weeks (we only have a month and a half left on our contracts here in Tucson). That is not the case today.
Granted, our economy is in a tailspin, and we count ourselves lucky that we even have jobs at this point and are even able to save up money. The word on the street is that travel nursing positions are few and far between, that a lot of travel nurses are hanging up their travel scrubs to take staff jobs to ride out this recession/depression (let's be honest, how crappy must it be to call it a depression?). We know of a few nurses here in Tucson that apparently are heading back to North Carolina to take staff positions.
I never thought that I would see a situation where there were so few travel positions. Indeed, a lot of hospitals (including my current employer) have installed a hiring freeze, and aren't even taking on new staff nurses. It's turned into a game of seeing who can last the longest. Hospitals can hold off on hiring new nurses for as long as they dare, but the fact is that nursing drives patient care, and when the ranks of the nursing staff reaches a point where patient care is compromised, then there is no choice but to hire new nurses. Some places, like the floors here at my hospital, are increasing the patient load from 4:1 to 5:1, but that is about as far as they can go. At some point, managers have to break down and hire more nurses, budgets be damned.
On the other hand, the real question for travelers is who can afford to wait it out. There's always the potential for a month or two or more in between assignments. Competition for positions is fierce, as entire states post only a few jobs here and there, or none at all. Hospitals suddenly are finding that they can be ridiculously picky. I've heard of hospitals having requirements like two years of traveling experience, or to have the state license in hand even before bothering to apply. This latter requirement is annoying. For example, Jess and I applied for our Washington licenses recently, as we've heard it takes 8-10 weeks to get it. It cost us $325 for the two of us, and ICU jobs are extremely rare in Washington right now, not to mention PICU jobs. But we can't even apply for positions that come up without the license. So, we take the risk of not even getting a job in Washington, but we had to pay over $300 for that chance.
Also stewing in our minds is the fact that we can't really apply for any Washington positions in the near future. First, we haven't gotten our licenses yet, and also, the jobs are only posting three weeks from their start dates. That makes this game of chicken all the more daunting. We've tried to compensate by having a backup plan, but that's no guaranetee. We are trying to secure assurances for extensions here at our current positions. I've been told that I would be able to get an new 13-week contract, but Jess's PICU essentially cranks down to a skeleton crew during the summer months, and there's considerable doubt that she would be able to renew.
Our second backup plan is to drive to Sacremento and pick up some California licenses, which can be obtained in a day. California, despite being the state in the most trouble these days, is the only state that appears to be reliably hiring. There seem to be plenty of jobs in the San Diego and LA areas. It's another possibility.
In the meantime, we just have to wait. It's still too early to know what will be avaible by mid-April. Perhaps this recession will start to lift a little, hospitals will unfreeze their hiring, and positions will begin to reappear. Perhaps we have nothing to worry about. Still, it's uncomfortable waiting around to see what might happen.
