Recent California nursing graduates have had trouble finding jobs this year, according to a study conducted by a major California health institute.
However, students of the UCLA School of Nursing are finding that they are not as affected by this recent trend.
“It’s not that our graduates aren’t finding jobs, they (are) …. it just may not be their primary choice,” said Courtney Lyder, the dean of the UCLA School of Nursing. “The people who are having the greatest trouble are the associate degree nurses, which we do not produce here in UCLA.”
Lyder added that last year, all graduates of the UCLA School of Nursing were able to secure jobs.
For this reason, he said he believes that the prestige of a UCLA degree in nursing ensures that all graduating students will find jobs.
The economy is the main reason for the overall decrease of available nursing jobs, said Suzette Cardin, assistant dean of student affairs at the UCLA School of Nursing. A nursing shortage was reported across the state until 2008, she said.
When the recession hit, older nurses who were planning to retire or were working part-time decided instead to work full-time to secure personal income.
The study by the California Institute for Nursing and Health Care, which Cardin helped conduct last summer, showed that out of a random survey of 1,000 nursing graduates, 40 percent were unable to find jobs.
Cardin said while most nurses are finding it hard to find jobs at all, UCLA nursing graduates are much less affected. Recent graduates will find jobs eventually, Cardin said, but may not get their first choice and may have to wait in order to start working. Nursing students who graduated last June started working in January and February instead of August or September because of a lack of available positions in hospitals.
“It should be harder for some nurses to find jobs, but nurse practitioners such as myself who are specially trained in a specific concentration are in as high demand as ever, so I’m not too worried,” said graduate nursing student Hannah Bampton.
In addition to this, the number of patients in hospitals is also decreasing because many people can’t afford health care and insurance, said Liz Jacobs, spokeswoman for the California Nurses Association.
Jacobs said the shortage in nursing jobs is especially prevalent in California, where better conditions and benefits are available to nurses than in other states.
This has resulted in a huge increase of nurses who have migrated from out of state to work in California to find more favorable working positions, Jacobs said.
“What I’ve been saying to undergraduates and graduate nurses is, “˜I see that right now it’s hard but it will change and get better as the economy improves,'” she said.