Nursing Job a Sure Bet? Think Again

May 24, 2010 — -- Nursing is supposed to be one of the country's most in-demand professions -- so why can't Muna Abdi find a job?

"I have been just trying to apply anywhere I can get possibly get any position," said Abdi, 22, a recent graduate of St. Catherine University in Minnesota. "I get letters to my e-mail saying, 'We're no longer filling that position,' or, 'We found someone more qualified.'"

Despite long-range projections of major U.S. nursing shortages, would-be nurses in some parts of the country now are finding that gaining employment is no longer the sure bet it once was.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing said that colleges in Minnesota, New York, New Jersey and California all report that there seem to be more nursing graduates than there are jobs in those regions. At St. Catherine, two-thirds of nursing graduates have yet to find work, according to a university survey.

Layoffs and hiring freezes at hospitals account for at least part of the problem. In Minnesota, hospitals have slashed more than 2,200 positions since the fall of 2008, according to the Minnesota Hospital Association.

Though the layoffs largely affected administrative jobs, the union representing 12,000 nurses in the Twin Cities region said its members are still smarting from the cutbacks.

"Our nurses really feel like the Twin Cities hospitals are dangerously understaffed and that patient lives are being put in jeopardy," said John Nemo, a spokesman for the Minnesota Nurses Association, which is now locked in a contentious contract dispute with Twin Cities Hospitals, an organization of 14 hospitals in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Maureen Schriner, a spokeswoman for Twin Cities Hospitals, said the hospitals' staffing ratios are still above national standards.

"We have better patient outcomes, better quality of care, better safety records than anywhere in the country," she said.

The hospitals say they're just doing what they can to keep health care affordable while grappling with cuts to state funding and continuing to invest in technology and facilities improvements.

Union members, meanwhile, argue that the hospitals are spending too much on building expansions. They're also pushing back against proposals to cut pension benefits and allow hospitals more flexibility in switching nurses from one department to another.

Members voted last week to hold a one-day strike if a contract agreement isn't reached by June 1. The union says it could be the largest such strike in U.S. history.