Nursing Job Market

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Faced with a declining job market within the hospital setting and overall declining wages, nurses have had to change their traditional practices to retain jobs within the changing nursing job market. As noted above, many nurses have had to seek lower paying or less challenging jobs outside of a hospital due to the diminished job opportunities within the hospital as a result of managed care. For those nurses who have been able to retain jobs within a hospital setting, they have been asked to take on new responsibilities in many cases. For instance, nurses may now be asked to place considerable value on cost savings in addition to the health of their patients whereas in the past decisions were often based strictly on the health of the patient. This brings up new ethical dilemmas within the nursing profession as to the value of human life in the overall scheme of managed healthcare.

New Roles - Nursing Job Market

And some nurses have had to seek entirely new roles in order to retain employment within the healthcare setting. For example, one of the primary means by which nurses can increase their value in managed care is to expand their role into case management. Nurses have shifted into two different roles as case managers.

The diversification of the nursing profession as a result of a declining job market has not been studied in depth. Certainly, the overall employment trends within the nursing profession have been examined in a number of ways:

• Up to now, it has been assumed that nurses are willing to take on new roles beyond the routine job tasks to which they are accustomed.
• It is assumed that nurses have been sufficiently trained to accept the new responsibilities whether these responsibilities are increased budgeting skills or ethical preparation.
• Unfortunately, as has been seen even in the case of nurses moving into geriatric care roles, the turnover rate of nurses within these new careers is high.
• Workloads are often increased as well as the psychological and emotional burdens placed on nurses in these geriatric care roles.
• Furthermore, many nurses have not received sufficient training in this area whether it's in financial, managerial, or professional care areas.