Paul Murray's weblog, with news you may have missed and my $0.02 worth on a number of topics.

"You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it."
- Art Buchwald

I bet you don't have a friend who's an acupuncturist

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Changes for another "safe" profession. For years, it's been well-known that there's a shortage of nurses in this country. That's why a lot of people choose it as a profession: the comforting knowledge that you'll always be able to find work.

Well, chalk up another thing our current economic recession has changed, at least temporarily, according to PRI's Marketplace:

[Reporter Cathy Duchamp:] There are still job openings for nurses. But vacancy rates nationwide are lower than they have been for years, says Peter Buerhaus. The Vanderbilt University professor is lead author on a recent study of the nursing labor market. He says in the last two years a record number of nurses have returned to full-time hospital work.

Peter Buerhaus: The numbers were absolutely beyond our comprehension.

Buerhaus says the reason experienced nurses are coming back has to do with family finances.

Buerhaus: Seventy percent of nurses are married. When their spouses either lose their jobs or are worried that they might, then some RNs who are not working decide, "Aha, I need to pop back into this labor market." And others who already may be working, but say, part-time, they increase their hours of work.

The story goes on to say that hospital administrators predict this is only temporary, and they're pressing ahead with their efforts to encourage more people to enter the profession.

Labels: jobs, professions, recession

posted by Paul Murray at 2:35 PM | permanent link |